felix
Ex-president
disregarded
constitution
Andy Sykes
Editor-in-chief
The previous President of the Union, Sameena Misbahuddin, may
have “flagrantly disregarded” the
Union’s constitution, claimed Jon
Matthews (Deputy President, Finance & Services) at a meeting
of the Executive Committee on
Tuesday.
Mr Matthews’ comments were
made while introducing a paper submitted to the Committee,
which accuses Miss Misbahuddin
of breaching the consitution during her handling of the sabbatical
elections last year. The allegations
centre around the post of Deputy
President (Graduate Students), a
post currently occupied by Shama
Rahman. Ms Rahman apparently
put forwards a proposal to the Executive Committee, via Miss Misbahuddin, that suggested she take up
her position in September, rather
than in July with the other sabbs.
This was to allow Miss Rahman to
work on completing her MSc during
July and August; refusal of the proposal may have meant Miss Rahman would have to step down.
Miss Rahman claims to have spoken to Miss Misbahuddin about the
proposal while she was deliberating over whether to stand for the
position. However, the first paper
put before Exec by Miss Misbahuddin was only a day before the final
candidates’ meeting that would
allow the votes to be counted. As
such, only 24 hours were allowed
for discussion of the paper, which
was done by “electronic meeting”,
something that is neither allowed

nor forbidden by the Union’s constitution. The proposal was rejected by
6 votes to 5, and shortly afterwards
another proposal was circulated
after the final candidates’ meeting
with a very short deadline. Again,
the paper was discussed electronically, with most of the votes arriving after the deadline. The proposal
was passed 6 to 5, but some Exec
members were unhappy with the
short deadlines, lack of discussion
and apparently forcefulness of Miss
Misbahuddin and leaked the closed
session emails.
On learning of the leak, Miss Misbahuddin told Exec that she “no
longer trusted them” with closed
session business, and that she
would decide on such business by
herself, without consulting the committee, which is unconstitutional.
The two proposals led to confusion
as the new sabbs arrived this year,
with the team being presented with
the first, rejected proposal rather
than the second, accepted proposal. The former said that the DPGS
would be absent for the whole of
August, when in fact she would be
absent for the last three weeks of
August, and work two days a week
during July and the first week of
August.
This reporter was unable to contact Miss Misbahuddin, but spoke
to the previous incumbent of the
post of Deputy President (Clubs
& Societies), Simon Matthews. Mr
Matthews said that he only knew
about Miss Rahman’s proposal 24
hours before the candidates’ meeting, when it was brought to Exec,
and added that he felt “it [the decision] was definitely rushed”. Com-

menting on the threat to conduct
closed session Exec business without consulting the committee, Mr
Matthews said: “I’m not 100% sure
that anything was decided outside
of Exec that should have been discussed.” He also hinted that he
was being kept in the dark about
Miss Misbahuddin’s decisions: “I’m
aware of a few things (I’m not going
to be specific) that I wasn’t told at
the time but would have expected
to have been.” However, he said
that he felt the threat of unilateral
action was more of a “threat/loss of
temper” than a serious move.
He was supportive of Miss Misbahuddin’s attempts to get the
proposal approved, calling it “wellintentioned”. However, he was critical of the handling of the second
proposal: “Exec certainly had no
time to consider it properly, and
there was a significant amount of
pressure brought to bear to accept
it. With hindsight... they should have
stuck to their original decision.”
The reasons for the current sabb
team bringing up this matter have
been questioned by a number of
hacks. Ostensibly, the paper was
brought to try to amend the constitution to clarify the situation with
electronic meetings, and to reconsider the role of the DPGS. The
paper included several options for
a future Graduate Students representative, such as changing the
start date, making it part-time sabbatical position akin to a Faculty
Union President, and renaming
the position to GSA Chair. These
considerations will be investigated
over the next few weeks by the sabb
team.

Lord Robert Winston, took part in a special lecture entitled
‘Playing God?’ on Tuesday evening inside the Great Hall. The IC
Professor of Fertility Studies spoke to a packed house about the
connections between faith, religion and science. There was one
especially amusing anecdote about the scientist who discovered
sperm cells, only to be afraid of his own small wriggling gametes,
thinking he had some strange disease.

2

Friday 3 November 2006

felix

NEWS

news.felix@imperial.ac.uk

Turnstiles to come?
College closes reception desks around South Kensington campus
College has unveiled plans to
change the access to the campus,
with reception desks within buildings being phased out in favour of
swipe card turnstiles.
Through the summer, the College has been consulting with
staff around the campus in order
to decide how best to “restructure
reception services”. The initial
plans, which were the subject of
discussion amongst College Security and receptionists, involved the
closure of twelve out of the fifteen
reception desks around campus,
with two more being converted into
‘concierge positions’. In the buildings where reception desks were
to be removed, turnstiles activated
by swipe cards were to be installed,
similar to the ones in the newly
completed Chemistry entrance.
This meant that visitors to one of
the buildings with turnstiles would
be directed to a central desk in the
Sherfield Building where a member
of staff from the desk or the destination department would take the
visitor to the correct building and
give them access.
The revised plans are somewhat
similar, with seven desks remaining: the College Main Entrance,
the Chemistry & Biochemistry
building, the Blackett Lab (Physics entrance), the Faculty Building,
the Huxley Building, the Skempton Building and the Sir Alexander
Fleming Building. The external
facing entrances will be swipe card
access only; these are the Royal
School of Mines entrance, the Huxley entrance at 180 Queens Gate,
and the Aeronautical Engineering
entrance. These entrances will only
be accessible to students who study
in these departments, apart from
the Aero entrance, which will permit any student with a swipe card.
The loss of reception desks means
that extra staff are likely to be taken on to deal with the extra mail.
Whereas post was previously left in
the reception areas of buildings by
postal staff, it will now be delivered
directly to the department itself, resulting in “an improved postal serv-

The magnetic strip turnstiles in the new Chemistry entrance
ice”. Couriers will also be directed
to new drop-off points, varying with
department.
Felix has learned that plans to install more of the swipe card access
turnstiles in buildings are under
consideration. The turnstiles are
monitored with CCTV, and only allow access to students and staff
who work inside that particular
building. Jumping the gates should
trigger alarms, and Security can
locate the jumper by viewing the
CCTV footage. Turnstiles are likely
to be added to the Queen’s Gate and
Prince Consort Road entrances by
January.
When the plans were proposed
during the summer, they were met
with criticism from some inhabitants of the campus. Some suggested that they would make collaboration across departments difficult, as
freedom of movement from building
to building would be restricted. Ceri
Davis, Head of Security, has said
that the final decision on who would
be allowed access to the building

would depend on what the managers of the building wanted, and
that despite the buildings being on
swipe-controlled access 24 hours a
day, College Security has no problem allowing all students and staff
access to all the buildings.
Though Mr Davis has promised
proximity readers for turnstiles,
the ones in the Chemistry Entrance
are magnetic strip only, and have
proved somewhat problematic,
being slow to reset on occassion.
However, the concierge position allows congestion to be bypassed by
opening the glass gates.
The overall aim of the plans is to
improve the security of South Kensington campus, and to centralise
visitor access. However, the promised closure of Imperial College
Road, and turnstile placement at all
entrances of the campus are probably a fair way off since both Westminster and the Royal Borough
Councils must agree, and may also
depend on the long-term plan of pedestrainising Exhibition Road.

Elections complete
This year’s Council elections are
complete, with results being announced at Thursday lunchtime,
but not without the usual share of
silliness, farce, and mistakes.
Despite being announced as “the
most successful Council Elections
turn-out ever”, the average turnout was only 7.2%. This is likely attributable to the lack of campaigning of most candidates, as most of
them were standing unopposed by
anyone but Re-Open Nominations
(RON). The highest turn-out was in
the Faculty of Medicine, with 12.3%
of undergraduates coming out to
vote for their counsellors.
Notable victors from the elections
were: Ashley Brown, the editor of
Live! (CGCU online newspaper,
live.cgcu.net), who was elected as
Postgraduate Engineering Counsellor; Alex Guite, the leader of the
NUS Yes campaign, who was elected as Postgraduate Natural Science
counsellor; and Andy Sykes, the Fe-

lix editor, who was elected as NonFaculty Counsellor, a rather odd
position that represents less than
100 students in the College, including those in the Tanaka Business
School and the sabbs themselves.
Despite heavy email campaigning by John Collins, the Union
President, some positions remain
unfilled, and will have to be elected
at the next Council meeting. An ‘administrative error’ lead to the Welfare Campaigns Officer not being
included on the website form for
voting or standing, leaving prospective officers confused. This position
will also by elected at Council.
As reported two weeks ago, hustings in the JCR proved as farcical as usual, with most students
only paying attention when RON
(Stephen Brown) took to the stage.
Nonetheless, any increase in voter turn-out for what is often seen
as the “hacks’ elections” is to be
commended.

Student’s death in Beit Hall

Beit Hall, where the student was found dead in his room
An undergraduate maths student
was found dead in his room in Beit
Hall on Tuesday.
The alarm was raised by the student’s mother, who had not been
able to contact her son. The wardening staff acted immediately and
gained access to his room, then
called paramedics and the police.
The cause of death is being investigated by the police. The student

had previously suffered from epilepsy however.
The student’s parents have been
informed of the tragedy, and a College tutor is currently supporting
them, along with the Warden of Beit
Quad. Ben Harris, Deputy President (Education & Welfare), said:
“At this sad time the thoughts of all
those involved in the Union are with
the student’s friends and family.”

felix 1,362
Friday 03.11.06
Da Vinci exhibition

Going surfing

“The collection manifests itself as
a fascinating and beautifully arranged collection of sketches and
thoughts of the prolific genius that
was Leonardo.”
PAGE 5 & 16

“To many who don’t know, windsurfing is probably the greatest
hangover cure you can dream of.”
PAGE 28

Coffee Break returns

Trouts and radicals

“David Hasselhoff left a void in Felix that many have always thought
could not be filled (due to the size
of the Hoff’s monstrous loins).
Luckily for all of you I’m far better!
Hear me roar! So stand straight
when I’m talking to you!”
PAGE 32

“A friend asked me if I wanted
to go and see a blues guitarist
called Walter Trout. Intrigued by
the name I agreed, despite having
only a passing interest in blues
music, and boy was I impressed
with the result.”
PAGE 14

Fabric’s seventh

“By 3am we left happy that we’d
spent a great night out, although
not relishing the prospects of trying to drive home.”
PAGE 15

Rotten Peaches

“She’s yet to come to the crushing realisation that she an invisible
speck in the universe and no-one
cares that she DJs.”
PAGE 21

Sport does exist

“Five weeks of having a non-existent sports page and my article
getting published under “hockey”
instead of “football” last week was
enough to piss me off completely.”
PAGE 35 & 36

Borat moviefilm out everyplace today in London! Is it essential viewing?
PAGE 17

Friday 3 November 2006

felix

NEWS

3

news.felix@imperial.ac.uk

Students’ uncapped top-up anger
Students march to Trafalgar Square in national protest over government plans to lift the cap on top-up fees
David Ellis
News Editor
7,500 students marched through
London on Sunday to protest
against top up fees. The march began in Bloomsbury, passed Downing Street and ended up in Trafalgar Square where 3,000 balloons
were released, one for every pound
each new student owes to the government under the new Top-Up
fees scheme.
The protest was aimed at forcing the government to drop plans
to remove the £3,000 cap on top
up fees. Many students want the
entire scheme scrapped, although
the government pushed the Higher
Education Act through parliament,
which set up the current scheme,
in 2004. There were fierce protests
at the time, and now plans to lift
the cap on fees have rekindled the
touch paper.
Top up fees are an attempt to reform the way undergraduate students pay for university courses.
Until 1997 students would pay nothing for their university education.
After 1997 students had to pay
up to £1,250 per year for their degrees, the exact amount was set
by ‘means-testing’ which looks at
the income of a student’s parents.
Students could then apply for a
means-tested student loan from
the Student Loans Company, a government owned organisation. The
loans were charged such that interest is in line with inflation. In ‘real’
terms this meant the loans were
interest free. After graduation the
student pays back the loan at a rate
of 9% gross income on all earnings
above £15,000. The introduction of
these fees was controversial, seeing
the average student debt rise from
£2,212 in 1992 to £13,501 in 2005.
Under the new scheme, which
came into effect this year, universities can charge up to £3,000 per
year for undergraduate studies,
provided they meet certain equality standards as far as induction
is concerned. The Student Loans
Company pays the fees instead of
the student and the loans system
remains unchanged. The student
loans and the university fees are
then paid back to the Student Loans
Company after graduation under
the same terms as before.
The changes mean that the average student debt is predicted to
reach £20,000 for students enrolling
in 2006.
The scheme that applies to this
years freshers is only the beginning
of the government’s plan though.
There are suggestions for the
£3,000 cap on top up fees that cur-

rently applies to be lifted; this has
sparked the recent protest. If the
£3,000 cap is lifted then students
could be exposed to even more financial pressure. Predictions show
that average graduate debt could
rise to £44,000 by 2023.
The main concern is that students from low to middle income
backgrounds will be deterred from
further study by the burden of debt.
Gemma Tumelty, the NUS president, said: “We really believe that
debt will be a huge deterrent on
students entering education.
“This year there were 15,000 fewer
students - that’s a huge concern to
us, particularly when Government
is trying to widen participation.”
Although new students will not
have to pay their fees until they
start working, Ms Tumelty said the
prospect of debt after graduation
was “still there like a mill-stone
round someone’s neck”.
Just 10 Imperial students as opposed to 40 LSE students attended
the protest. The low turn out certainly does not reflect the Union’s
position with Union President, John
Collins throwing his support behind
the march. John Collins also noted
in an article for Live!: “Around a
dozen students from Imperial were
spotted on the march which compares favourably to larger London
Unions such as UCL, which has a
smaller turnout.”
The union didn’t receive help from
ULU due to illness, and heard the
details of the protest late because
Imperial is not a member of NUS.
But these factors did not stop a concerted publicity drive by the union
which included a poster campaign,
publicity at the JCR and the front
page of the union website being
given over to the protest. The main
reason for a low turn out appeared
to be a sense of apathy amongst Imperial students.
Ben Harris, Deputy President for
Education and Welfare, said that
the main reason people were not interested was because the cap would
not be removed whilst they were at
university. The drawn out approach
the government has adopted on the
introduction of top up fees seems
to have taken the edge off the campaign as far as Imperial students
are concerned.
Compared to last year’s larger
march, there were 20 fewer Imperial students attending this time
round. This low turn out amount
would appear to be part of a national trend.
Speaking to Felix, Ben Harris
said: “I believe the low turnout
from Imperial mirrors a national
trend. This is partly due to the fact

Students gathered to hear speeches from prominent campaigners in Trafalgar Square last Sunday
that any attempt to lift the cap, although a very real danger, is still
three years away.”
The impetus for reform came
from the universities themselves.
The Russell Group, the British
equivalent of the Ivy League, has
been particularly supportive of the
new measures.
In the US the undergraduates pay
large amounts to study. The university loans the student the fees until
after graduation. An undergraduate course at Harvard, for example,
cost $39,880 for the 2004/5 academic
year, that’s approximately £21,000.
The price contains board and lodging, tuition fees and health care
cover. Students can claim $28,500
in aid from the university. The rest
must be paid up front. By contrast,
an Imperial student living in Beit
hall in the same academic year
would have expected to pay around
£6,000 for a similar service.
With the stark difference in the
amount students pay gives the US
universities access to far greater
resources than the British ones.
The Russell Group, and other universities claim that this causes US

institutions to be far more competitive in attracting research grants,
the main source of income for universities. There is then a snowballing effect as top academic talents
chose to work in the US, attracting
more research grants. The British universities are together in the
view that something must be done.
The solution proffered by the
government is the so called top up
fee. But the scheme is a contradiction to a fundamental principle that
Britain aspires to. Namely, that no
citizen should be held back from
success for lack of opportunity. We
have the NHS; every citizen is entitled to healthcare, state education; every citizen is entitled to an
education. Top up fees are seen by
many as depriving those from less
affluent backgrounds from the opportunity of higher education. The
effect is to drive a wedge into society, widening the rich poor divide.
Last week Felix reported on the
case of Geraint Banks-Wilkinson,
a student who took his own life because he was unable to cope with
the financial pressure of studying
at university.

The message is getting through
to school pupils. ‘Sexy Maths’ was
an outreach program at Imperial
College last year. Students went to
local schools and give a presentation aimed at advertising the advantages of studying at university
and, in particular, the advantages of
studying Mathematics at university.
The program was very successful,
leading to the more appropriately
titled ‘Maths Matters’ program, although one of the main questions
school pupils asked at the events
was: “Why should I study at university, don’t you end up with a lot of
debt?”
This is precisely the question the
government doesn’t want school
pupils asking, they claim to be dedicated to increasing the number of
graduates. With this in mind, they
currently offer a system of grants
for disadvantaged students that
can total £3,000 per year. They don’t,
however, tackle the problem of students being disaffected with the
burden of debt resulting in the 3.7%
fall in the number of student applicants, that’s equivalent to the entire
population of Coventry University.

Top-Up Fees Information
• Families earning less than £17,501 can apply for grant of £2,700 a
year, which reduces to nothing for families on £37,425
• Universities charging maximum fees will have to fund bursaries of
at least £300 for the poorest students
• Students can still pay up-front if they want to
• Unpaid fees are repayable by graduates once their annual income
passes £15,000
• Payments must be at least 9% of gross income above £15,000

3000 balloons released in Trafalgar Square, one for every pound new students owe to the government for
each year of their degree

4

Friday 3 November 2006

felix

BUSINESS

business.felix@imperial.ac.uk

City explained: hedging with swaps
Jayraj Choksi
Business Correspondent
Options and futures allow the opportunity to hedge price risks, swaps
allow the opportunity to hedge risk
against cash flows. At their most
simple, swaps do exactly what they
say: they swap the cash flow of, say,
company A with those of company
B. Inherently, they are not traded
on exchanges and are classified
as over the counter (OTC) derivatives, contracts which are structured specifically for their primary
market, by investment banks. As
such, they cannot be bought or sold
on the open market and represent
flows which are of course very specific to the counterparties involved
in the transactions.
There are three main types of
swaps: interest-rate, currency, and
equity swaps. In an interest-rate
swap (IRS), there is a transfer of
the interest rate paid on borrowings and loans by company A and
company B. Why would companies want to swap interest rates?
Just like options and futures help
eliminate price risks, interest-rate
swaps help eliminate risk to interest rates. Typically, in an IRS, a
company will exchange the floating
interest rate (i.e. variable market
rate), usually LIBOR plus 50 basis

Currency swaps play an increasing role in hedging all kinds of risk
points, to a fixed interest rate. LIBOR is short for London Interbank
Offered Rate, a rate that banks offer each other on borrowings on the
London interbank money market.
The British Bankers Association
publishes different rates with different maturities; for example, there
exists a daily LIBOR, three-month,

six-month, one-year, five-year – any
period up to 50 years. Basis points
simply mean 0.01% (1bps = 0.01%).
It is worth noting that the principal
borrowing, the money on which the
interest rate is being paid, is not the
focus of the swap, only the interest
rates themselves. As with cash settled options and futures, a swap is

Get on the property ladder

settled in net. So for example if A
owes B 1.5% and B owes A 3%, B
simply pays A 1.5%.
Currency swaps employ a similar
structure; however, they relate to
the conversion of one currency to
another. In effect, currency swaps
allow companies to borrow debt
in one country, where it may be
cheaper, and then swap it into the
currency they need it in. This can
be a dangerous game as the company has debt obligations in the currency it has initially borrowed in,
and if there are no revenue streams
in that currency to cover for the repayments, the company would then
have to convert money, exposing it
to foreign exchange rates.
A landmark currency swap occurred in 1981 between IBM and
the World Bank, arranged by Salomon Brothers (now a part of Citigroup). IBM had raised debt principal in Deutsche Marks (DEM) and
Swiss Francs (CHF), and swapped
them into dollars (USD) to finance
their various corporate ventures.
The problem for IBM was that to
repay its DEM and CHF loans it
would rack up considerable transaction costs when buying the DEM
and CHF to repay their loans, pay
a call premium (i.e. pay more than
market price), issue bonds in USD
then convert the money to DEM/

CHF and pay capital gains taxes if
they made any money in the process. At the same time, the World
Bank wanted to borrow DEM and
CHF to lend to its customers, and
doing so on the open market would
involve issuing DEM and CHF
bonds, which would have had large
issuing costs.
Under the swap, the World Bank
assumed IBM’s DEM and CHF obligations and borrowed in USD to
pay off IBM’s loan. Actually, it delivered the money straight to IBM.
In the meanwhile, IBM paid off the
World Bank’s USD loan. The currency rates swung in IBM’s favour,
and Salomon Brothers made a lot of
money.
Finally, equity swaps. These are
actually a subset of a broader type
of swaps called total return swaps.
In this type of swap, party A holds
certain assets, say shares, and pays
any returns those assets make to
party B, who in return pay A interest. In essence, party B has gained
exposure to the price risk without
actually holding the asset, but any
capital gain made from the assets
must also be given up by A to B. Any
losses are paid by B to A.
In short, swaps allow companies
to hedge their operational risks and
allow them to cut many of the costs
associated with raising debt.

Analysis: oil cartels

The average couple borrows more than £28,000 from parents
Paul Estruch
Business Correspondent
Renting a property is expensive
and difficult, but getting your foot
on the property ladder is even harder. As of October 2006, according to
rightmove.co.uk, the average asking price for a property was nearly
£220,000 and this is even higher in
Greater London, at over £300,000.
These prices are amplified in some
areas; for example, in September in
Kensington and Chelsea, the average asking price jumped 10% to just
short of £1 Million. The main cause

of this is a lack of houses of the right
quality in the right areas.
For first-time buyers these prices
are proving just too high. First-time
buyers are now borrowing 3.27
times their income on a mortgage.
Imperial College Graduates, who
earn the most of all graduates, last
year averaged starting salaries of
£25,780, which even with borrowing
over 3 times would leave them with
a house well below the national
average.
All this is not to say it is impossible to get yourself on to the property ladder once you graduate. The

The average property in the UK is now worth in excess of £200,000

government has recently raised
the threshold on stamp duty, in an
attempt to make it easier to buy
cheaper houses for which first-time
buyers demand.
The government has also just
introduced a scheme called Open
Market HomeBuy designed at providing an additional 25% of the value of homes in interest-free loans
for key workers.
Many people rely on their parents
to give them a little boost. With the
average couple needing £29,000 for
deposit and stamp duty on a house,
people spend years saving up just
so they can take out a mortgage.
This is where mum and dad join
in, helping towards the deposit, or
even contributing to mortgage repayments. Most parents get this
money from the big increase in
value of their house, completing the
property circle.
Increasingly another way of gaining a mortgage is becoming popular. Getting a house and sharing
the mortgage with another person
often allows someone to get a share
of their first property. However this
has many pitfalls. Finding someone
to share a mortgage with requires
a lot of trust. It is very difficult to
get out of the mortgage if you cannot stand to live with each other:
you are liable for any of their shortcomings in payments, and you both
have to agree what to do with the
house further down the line.
Whilst it can be tough to get on
the property ladder it is definitely
possible. Once you do get yourself
a nice little place, you can sit back
and reap the benefits of increasing house prices whilst others are
trying to get themselves their first
house.

OPEC is the oil cartel responsible for half the world’s oil output
When you first think of cartels, it
conjures the image of an illegal
drug empire in the deepest jungle of
South America with tight ranks and
extreme rules, such as the Medellin
Cartel. Whilst a cartel in business
is unlikely to result in deaths, it can
involve the exchanging of brown
envelopes and secret meetings.
A cartel is a group of independent businesses whose goals are to
jointly raise prices and income, limit supply, or eliminate competition,
usually in a market where there
are only a few sellers, for their advantage. Such cartels are illegal in
most countries; however, they continue to exist, particularly internationally, where nations have immunity under public international law.
In the UK, the Office of Fair Trading enforces European Community
(EC) and UK competition laws in
particular the Cartel and Competition Act 1998.
Perhaps the most renowned and
most commonly used example of
a cartel is that of the Organization
of Petroleum Exporting Countries
(OPEC). It is has 11 member state,
and was founded by Libya, Iran,
Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and Venezuela.
Its members are very important to

the production of oil, accounting for
about 60% of the worlds known oil
reserves and 41.7% of the oil production in 2005. Its main aim is to
protect the interests of its nations
by controlling the amount of oil its
members output. Whilst this might
sound all bad and mean high prices
for us, OPEC also tries to keep the
oil market steady by altering its output and can even increase output to
try and absorb a sudden market increase in the price of oil.
Closer to home, earlier this year,
many airlines, including British
Airways, had their offices raided by
the EC and the Department of Justice and are still under investigation. This was to look into possible
price fixing of fuel surcharges and
other costs related to cargo. With
the EC imposing a maximum fine of
up to 10% of annual sales, and with
the negative publicity, this could be
costly to the airlines involved.
Typically cartels have a very short
life. It is very easy for one member
to break production limits and produce more in attempt to make more
money for itself. As soon as this
happens, the cartel will become ineffective, and normal market forces
will begin to take over.

Friday 3 November 2006

felix

SCIENCE

5

science.felix@imperial.ac.uk

Science through the looking glass
Felix examines the new field of neuroesthetics, and decides that it is time to start uniting science and art
Nell Barrie
For me, the choice between art and
science first came at the end of
GCSEs. I was hit with the stark realisation that I might need chemistry and maths A-level to go with the
biology that I loved. But if I’d kept
my options open at A-level, tthen
I certainly would have had to pick
sides when I decided on a degree.
But why is there this polarity, never
‘science and art’ but only ‘either
or’?
The idea of the “two cultures” of
science and art is an old one. Science is thought of as being all about
reality, while art allows you to put
your own interpretation on life, the
universe and everything. But are
they really so different? A scientific
theory can be thought of as a representation of reality – it’s never completely accurate, but it’s supposed
to help you understand the world
a little better. But isn’t a painting
just another representation of reality? Doesn’t religion help believers
to understand their world? Does
science really have a monopoly on
truth?
Even the smallest introduction to
philosophy of science will quickly
illustrate that scientists don’t have
all the answers. More and more scientists are turning to art either as
a way to communicate their work,
or as an interesting new subject
for study. A recent event at the Science Museum’s Dana Centre is just
such an example. “Art of the Brain”
was presented by Dr Lizzie Burns,
a science-based artist, whose aim
was to inspire the audience about
neuroscience by using art.
Dr Burns presented her own art
inspired by neurons and the brain,
and the audience got messy with
paints, pens and even coloured air
dough, making their own brain art

and learning about the brain at the
same time. I asked Dr Burns why
she thinks art and science can work
together.
“I genuinely have always loved
both art and science,” she told me.
“I really got into art properly after
‘discovering’ Dali… he saw science
as holding the secrets for some kind
of divine truth. I use art as a tool for
communicating science – I seem
fairly unique in having the science
background but also being an artist… but I see the combination as
a way of being able to help people
find their own way into seeing how
beautiful and inspiring science is.”
She certainly succeeds in inspiring participants in her events. And
she’s not alone in combining “the
two cultures”. Scientists around
the world are becoming interested
in the new field of “neuroesthetics”.
The idea behind this new discipline
is that art, as a human activity, can
be understood by looking at the
laws of the brain. For example, new
brain imaging techniques are beginning to allow neuroscientists to
study the neural basis of visual art.
The Institute for Neuroesthetics
was recently founded in Berkeley,
California, and is attached to the
Wellcome Laboratory of Neurobiology at University College London.
The institute pursues the idea of
consilience – the integration of
knowledge from different fields
(such as art and science).
Neuroesthetics is interesting in
the way it assumes that art and science are not really so different. Scientists with an interest in where art
and science meet are now engaged
in research projects like identifying
the molecular basis of the brain’s
emotional response to art, and looking at neurological conditions like
synaesthesia, in which the senses
become intertwined so that sounds

One of the products of “Art of the Brain”. sponspored by the Medical Research Council and EDAB
can be coloured and colours can
have their own sounds.
It’s a young field, but with big
players like the Wellcome Trust
becoming more engaged with art
through their Sciart programme
(funding art based around the biomedical sciences) it looks like art

and science are set to become better friends than ever before.
So while the new spin on “the two
cultures” aims to bring science and
art together, it’s becoming clear
that the two have never really been
separate. Prehistoric art was a window on the artists’ world, just as sci-

ence and art are for us today. Each
inspires the other, and we need both
to appreciate and understand the
universe. “The most beautiful thing
we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art
and science.” And no, it wasn’t Dali
who said that. It was Einstein.

Da Vinci decoded: a beautiful mind
Tamara Nicolson

Da Vinci’s intricate observations

Mention the words ‘da Vinci’ and
most people will automatically think
of Dan Brown’s over-rated potboiler, or perhaps of the legendary
Mona Lisa. If, like me, you have dutifully trouped off to the Louvre in
order to see that ‘enigmatic’ smile
from 100 feet away, behind hordes
of like-minded tourists, you might
have felt the selfsame disappointment as me.
However, the da Vinci Exhibition
currently on show at the V&A provides no such disappointment. The
collection manifests itself as a fascinating and beautifully arranged
collection of sketches and thoughts
of the prolific genius that was Leonardo. It provides the viewer with
some insight into the thoughts of
arguably the greatest artistic and
scientific mind the world has ever
seen.
The underlying and continuous
theme running through the exhibition is of the great man’s fascination with how the world works
– of how everything (including the
human body) is mirrored in the
whole of nature: the smaller merely
reflecting the whole. Thus, we are

privileged to witness Leonardo’s interest in the workings of the human
body via sketches and scribblings.
In one display, he draws the arteries of an old man (Leonardo himself
skilfully dissected the old man after
death). At once, the observations
of the human arterial system seem
to have triggered a parallel fascination and flurry of intellectual output
associated with rivers and aqueducts (not least architectural ideas
involving aquaducts, valves, pumps
and irrigation systems). The ‘body
of the world’, ‘veins of water’ and
the ‘tree of blood vessels’ as he himself described them, were the inspiration for these new ideas. That is,
the workings of the human system
(ie. nature), such as the heart valve
and the manner in which the body
pumps blood, provided the inspiration for these new architectural
ideas.
There is little doubt however, that
despite being appreciated mainly
for his artistic side (at least in our
day and age), this exhibition celebrates Leonardo the Scientist – one
who utilised drawing as a primary
tool of analysis. For example, the
iconic image of a man drawn within a circle and a square with out-

stretched arms and legs was, for
Leonardo, the product of a study in
human proportion. Other sketches
of parts of the human anatomy and
buildings are also studies of proportion, or innovatory ways of shaping
space (such as the depiction of an
extraordinarily ‘plastic’ spiral staircase – the technical feat of a very
skilled draughtsman). Of course,
these drawings are no less beautiful for the fact they are first and
foremost scientific studies. Here
we see that science and art are
interchangeable; though whether
Leonardo himself made the distinction is debatable.
Certainly his oil painting of the
Mona Lisa residing in the Louvre,
is one in which beauty rather than
science seems to be a primary aim;
however, even in this work, the
background mountains are studies
of proportion and space, the face of
the Mona Lisa draws from his fascination and subsequent mathematical studies of light reflecting off the
human face (drawings which we
see in this exhibition).
Furthermore, the figure of the
Mona Lisa herself is also more
than partially the result of da Vinci’s fascination with human pro-

portion. Perhaps most startlingly
of all, da Vinci manages to render
that most irrational thing – beauty
– into something highly rational
and scientific.
Thus, the ‘Experience, Experiment and Design’ exhibition at the
V&A showcases Leonardo’s application of the rational, his struggle
for new knowledge and his attempts
to uncover laws of the universe. It
is during this process that he also
simultaneously uncovered great
beauty. Here we witness the workings of a breathtakingly original
mind, yet we also see how the application of science to his art helped
him to come up with a massive array of new ideas. Indeed his ability
to combine all these aspects have
provided the inspiration for some of
the greatest inventions and works
of art known to mankind.
Leonardo da Vinci: Experience,
Experiment, Design. V&A,
Exhibition Road.
Exhibition open until January 7th.
£7 students/£10 adults.
Telephone the booking line on
0870 906 3883.
Audio tour highly recommended.
£3 students/£3.50 adults.

6

Friday 3 November 2006

felix

SCIENCE

science.felix@imperial.ac.uk

Brian May: BSc, CBE, PhD?

Bang!

Colin Barras chats to the Queen legend about his new book, Jimi Hendrix jamming
in the Great Hall and his return to Imperial to finish the most overdue thesis ever
Brian May returns to the studio
to work on new album? That’s not
especially newsworthy. But Brian
May returns to Imperial to work on
PhD? Now, there’s a scoop! Tape
recorder in hand, I phoned Brian
for a chat.
Long before Queen, Brian had developed a great passion for astronomy. He chats to me about zodiacal
light; “A beautiful light you can see
just after sunset if you’re lucky and
you live in the tropics.” This, then,
was the subject of his PhD. “Most
people think it’s due to dust in the
solar system that’s scattering the
light. People were wondering where
the dust came from and there was
the inkling of the idea that it might
be something to do with
the way that the solar
system was formed.
It was an object of
great interest
at the time.”
The time in
question,
the late
1960s;
Brian,
a recent

graduate from the Physics department, was deeply involved in postgraduate academic life at Imperial.
What was life like for an Imperial student in those halcyon days?
“Well, a lot of hard work,” Brian
admits. Some things never change.
But this was the world of Swinging
London, and Imperial saw its fair
share of action. “It was a fantastic
time to be around musically,” he
recalls, “I was on the entertainments committee and we booked a
lot of great groups: Spooky Tooth,
for instance.” I maintain a polite silence. But a Wikipedia search later
reveals this group to be noteworthy
for its Cumbrian origins, greatly increasing the rock credentials of

my home county. Back to the 1960s
Imperial music scene, Brian is soon
on more familiar ground. “Well,
Jimi Hendrix… that was a great
coup. He was playing in the Great
Hall. We sold 1000 tickets!”
Brian’s own music career took off
at around this time. One of his early
groups, 1984, supported Jimi’s Imperial gig, “If you could call it supporting!” says Brian, bashfully. Later, an early ancestor of Queen was
to have its first rehearsal in a room
somewhere behind the Great Hall.
“In those days it was called the Jazz
Club Room. I rented it for a couple
of days and that’s where Roger and
I first played.” This being Queen
drummer Roger Taylor, then a student at London Hospital Medical
College. “So, Roger turned up and
set up his drum kit and started tuning them and I was quite amazed.
I’d never seen anyone tuning drums
before,” recalls Brian, used to the
hit-it-and-hope approach of most
rock drummers. “He tuned them
in the most amazing way so
they all started to blend
together. I was absolutely
stunned.”
Brian and Roger, with
their friend Tim Staffell,
played under the name
Smile. But within a
short space of time
the band line-up
had changed to
include
Freddie
Mercury on piano
and vocals, and
John Deacon on
bass. Queen was
born and Brian
began to drift
away from his astronomy research.
I wonder if he
ever considered
quitting the band
for academia? “I
think I was slightly
discouraged
with
academic life because my supervisor was raising
so many issues
about the thesis,
saying ‘write a
bit more, write
a bit more’. I
got to the point
where I thought:

I can’t do this any more!” This is
probably a familiar story for many
going through the PhD process.
Brian decided to give up the research entirely, and soon Queen
had released their first album. The
rest, as Brian jokingly agrees with
me, is rock and roll history.
But, while you can take the student out of academia, you can’t take
academia out of the student. Brian
continued to be fascinated with
things astronomical and ultimately
developed a close friendship with
Patrick Moore, astronomer and
populariser of science. Patrick is
one of Brian’s co-authors on Bang!
The Complete History of the Universe, published earlier this month.
The book claims to be a readable account of astronomy. Is this a direct
reference to the work of Stephen
Hawking, famously an author
whose books are bought but seldom
read? “We have boundless respect
for Stephen Hawking,” Brian says,
“but I personally found A Brief History of Time a difficult book. A lot
of people who are deep into their
disciplines don’t realise how simple
things have to be before a normal
person can understand them.”
The science communicator’s job
is a tough one, as Brian concedes,
“There’s this fine line you walk. You
don’t want to sacrifice major concepts but you don’t want to get deep
into problems that people can’t follow.” He has in mind one area of understanding that remains baffling
to the non-scientist. “I think very
often it’s the maths that puts people off. I personally love maths, but
a lot of people get an instant block
when they see an integral sign.”
But Brian’s interest in science
communication goes beyond this.
“In many disciplines you’re wrestling with a problem in one small
area and the problem could already
have been solved in another area
and you wouldn’t know about it.” To
help the spread of scientific knowledge even within the science community, the authors of Bang! have
set up a website, www.banguniverse.com. “I encourage everyone
to visit. We’re hoping it will develop
over the next few months as an organ of interaction.”
This newly re-kindled passion for
astronomy has encouraged Brian
to finish that PhD he began almost
40 years ago. Surely this is one of
the longest running PhDs ever? “I
know! It’s going to be a record!” he
jokes. “I’ve been in touch with Professor Rowan Robinson, who’s
the head of astrophysics,
and he’s very kindly offered me a desk and
computer.” Brian has
already been down to
“re-recce”
Imperial.
I ask him if much has
changed. “The big surprise was trees in Beit
Quad! There was nothing
there when I was a student. You guys have done a
good job making it into an
area that can be used and
enjoyed. And with tables
where you can sit and have
a beer!”
He may be older and wiser, but Brian is beginning to
think like a student again.
Isn’t it wonderful?

Bang! The Complete History
of the Universe
Brian May, Patrick Moore and
Chris Lintott
£20, Carlton Books, London
2006.
This is a beautiful coffee-table
size book, filled with gorgeous
photographs of the universe
and elegant explanations of
the state of our knowledge
about the cosmos, its origins
and its future.
Divided into seven chapters,
it tells the biography of the
universe, sidling through the
beginning of light, the universe’s evolution, the formation of stars and planets and
the emergence of life. The
final chapters look into the
future and to the anticipated
end of the universe.
The text is accessible and
engaging without coming
across as dumbed down. It is
aimed at a non-scientific audience and includes as asides
(in ‘grey areas’) explanations
of the Kelvin temperature
scale and other concepts that
might be unfamiliar to a nonImperial student.
Like bonus tracks on a CD,
after chapter 7 we come to
more fascinating information.
Tips for getting into practical astronomy and guides
to the night sky help you go
further; biographies of sixteen
astronomers and physicists,
whose research has led to our
current understanding of the
universe.
What is unlear is who wrote
what parts of the book. An entire section is dedicated to the
biographies and achievements
of astrophysicists - it would
have been nice to know each
of the author’s own contributions.There’s a Bang! website
www.banguniverse.com you
can look at.
Joanna Carpenter

Win Bang!
Felix has 10 copies of Bang! to
give away. To win, answer the
following question:
What musical Instrument did
Brian May play in the band
Queen?
a) The kazoo
b) The guitar
c) The cello
Email to the answer to:
science.felix@imperial.ac.uk

Friday 3 November 2006

felix

SCIENCE

7

science.felix@imperial.ac.uk

Brian May’s cosmic background
Felix looks back in time at the Imperial alumnus’ poor student days and the formation of rock icons Queen

Give me a title!(brian bio)
Colin Barras

Brian May’s (far left) writing partners for Bang! The Complete History of the Universe including Patrick Moore (left) and Chris Lintott (right)
Colin Barras
There are many roads to rock stardom, but few are as unlikely as the
one travelled by Brian Harold May.
He was born in Middlesex in July
1947 and his first ambition was to
become a surgeon rather than a
musician claims his mother. Indeed,
his music career had inauspicious
beginnings with much-hated compulsory piano lessons from the age
of five. His father, an accomplished
ukulele player, was undaunted by
this apparent lack of interest in
all things musical. He introduced
Brian to the ukulele the following
year and Brian quickly showed an
aptitude for the instrument. On his
seventh birthday, after persistent
nagging, Brian was given his first
guitar. The seven-year-old Brian
was developing in other directions
too; his love of astronomy and photography date to this time.
Academically gifted, Brian won a
scholarship to Hampton Grammar
School at the age of 11. He maintained his interest in music during

his teenage years, famously working with his father, Harold, to build
an electric guitar from the wood
of a nineteenth century fireplace.
The unique sound of this guitar, the
“Red Special”, was later to become
as recognizable to legions of Queen
fans as Freddie Mercury’s vocals.
But, ever the realist, Brian still
recognized music as a mere hobby. Encouraged by his parents, he
continued his education at Imperial College in 1965, reading physics and infrared astronomy. During
his time at Imperial, he continued
making music, initially through
a band formed during his school
days (called 1984) and later through
the short-lived group Smile. It was
through Smile that Brian met future
Queen drummer Roger Taylor.
In due course Brian graduated
with a BSc Honours degree in
Physics and Mathematics, and embarked on a PhD, also at Imperial.
He studied zodiacal light, the sunlight reflected off interplanetary
dust particles. The research went
well, and Brian published in both

Nature and the Monthly Notices of
the Royal Astronomical Society. An
academic career seemed assured.
But then the financial reality of
student life hit. Brian’s doctoral
research dragged on into a fourth
year, and the grant to support his
living expenses dried up. Brian
resorted to teaching in a comprehensive school in Brixton to make
ends meet. Meanwhile, his evenings were devoted to music. By
now, Smile was no more; in 1970 the
lead singer, Tim Staffell, had left
the band to pursue new musical horizons elsewhere. Tim’s roommate,
Freddie Bulsara (later Mercury)
persuaded Brian and Roger to
continue performing, and together
formed Queen. In 1971 John Deacon joined the band on bass.
Short of both the time and money
necessary to complete his PhD,
Brian chose to discontinue his academic work. The decision proved to
be a wise one; Queen recorded their
eponymous first album in 1973 and
debuted in the UK singles charts
with Seven Seas of Rhye in 1974.

The band was incredibly prolific,
releasing a further fourteen studio albums and three greatest hits
packages between 1974 and 1999.
This was a band of musical equals;
all four band members contributed
memorable songs to the Queen
canon. Brian was responsible for
rock anthems We Will Rock You and
Now I’m Here.
Following the untimely death of
Freddie in late 1991, Brian coped
by throwing himself into his solo
music career. The Brian May Band
was formed in 1992 and toured the
world and elsewhere on the back of
a successful album. Brian continued to explore new musical directions; Queen had become the first
rock band to become involved in
film scoring, for Flash Gordon in
1980 and Highlander in 1986. Brian
penned the score for the French
art film Furia in 1999. Elsewhere,
he was involved in the successful
translation of Queen’s music to the
stage; The Queen musical We Will
Rock You is now well into its fifth
successful year at the Dominion

Theatre on Tottenham Court Road.
Brian continues to make the music headlines in the new millennium. One of the abiding images of
the 2002 celebration of Queen Elizabeth’s Golden Jubilee is Brian’s rendition of God Save the Queen from
the roof of Buckingham Palace. In
2005, Roger Taylor and Paul Rodgers, lead singer with 1970s band
Free, joined Brian on the first tour
by Queen in twenty years. Later in
the year, Brian received a CBE at
Buckingham Palace.
But Brian has not forgotten his
early interest in astronomy and
photography. He has been a regular guest on The Sky at Night, the
BBC’s long-running television
show devoted to astronomy, and is
reportedly working on a biography
of nineteenth century photographer
T R Williams. He was awarded the
honourary degree of Doctor of Science by the University of Hertfordshire in 2002. Recently, Brian has
decided he will finally return to his
academic studies to finish the PhD
he began in the late 1960s.

8

O
pinion
&

felix

Friday 3 November 2006

Comment

A waste of time, effort, and money
Their ideals may seem attractive on the surface, but if you have ever been unfortunate enough to be closely
involved with the NUS you will know the reality is a whole world away from what they lead us to believe

I
Tom Page
“I thoroughly
believe that
Imperial should
vote in the
upcoming
referendum to
stay out of NUS”

thoroughly believe that Imperial should vote in the upcoming referendum to stay
out of the NUS. Why? I write
as someone who has experience of NUS from being President
of Durham Students’ Union (DSU).
I have only just started at Imperial,
but I can speak as someone who
was very heavily involved in DSU
and had precious few good experiences with the National Union.
There are three core problems
with the NUS. It doesn’t know what
it’s for, it has no forum to decide
what it should do, and it is incapable
of acting when it makes policy decisions. Beyond this, there is a fourth
issue that is not so much about the
theoretical institution, but the people who are involved: it is highly
self-serving, and frequently more
concerned with its own internal
politics than issues facing students
across the UK.
I went to three NUS National
conferences – 2003, 2004, and 2005
– such are the pleasures of student union presidency. There will
be those who will say that Imperial
needs a national voice and NUS is
where it can achieve it. One visit to
NUS National Conference (NC) illustrates how false this is.
My first visit to NUS NC was comparatively better than everyone had
told me it would be – sure you had
rigged elections, voting cards that
you could buy from political factions

in return for your support, people
on the balcony instructing their faction how to vote, stage occupations,
endless procedural motions, votes
taking longer than an hour, dismal
attendance by the NEC (National
Executive Committee – NUS’s top
officers), but in comparison to what
I was promised this seemed like
above par for the course.
Go three times and you realise
how entrenched these failings are.
Political factions dominate NUS.
People grouping together because
of a shared goal of opinions is no
bad thing, but at NC all that matters to swathes of the delegates is
which faction wins each issue, not
the issue/election itself.
Because of the power of the factions, and the amount of noise a
small group of students can make,
NUS is impotent to represent the
“average” (I don’t use this term
pejoratively) student. Near riots,
screams of “Intimidation!”, and
farcical votes of no confidence will
be brought up at the first mention
of the Israel/Palestine occupation,
but barely anyone will listen during
a student housing debate, and the
resolution eventually passed will
be so very mundane and anodyne
you’ll wonder why you even bothered to vote.
This polarisation extends to the
NUS’s campaigns. The only highereducation funding line the NUS will
even listen to is the total abolition

of fees. This is an attractive argument, but go and speak to MPs and
it ruins any chance of a debate – it
made discussion almost impossible when at the Higher Education
Act 2004 votes Durham was trying
to argue that top-up fees weren’t
the way to fund education and we
should look at other options, but all
the NUS hacks could argue was the
same inflexible line – it must be totally free with no payment.
In the three years I was involved
the NEC were a supercilious, selfinterested group. They would turn
up at Durham once in a blue moon,
although you will no doubt get the
chance to meet many of them in
the next few weeks – if there’s one
thing you can be sure they’ll turn
up for it’s a disaffiliation/affiliation
referendum. After this initial flurry,
Imperial would see very little input
from the NEC, yet we’d be paying
them tens of thousands of pounds
a year.
In fact finances have been a major
problem in NUS with many (most?)
affiliated institutions underpaying,
leaving NUS with a massive deficit
(the truly incompetent spending of
money by the NEC also does little
to ameliorate this issue). Even the
NUS Treasurer 2004/05 (Martin
Ings, an uncharacteristically honest and hard working NEC member) would often look despairing as
he read out the latest batch of NUS
expenditure.

Surely, though, as I’m sure the
pro-NUS camp will rightly say, Imperial needs national representation: as the relationship with the
University of London draws to a
close, it’s vital that we can speak up
and be counted.
I couldn’t agree more, but NUS
isn’t capable of being that forum.
We should look at working with
comparable institutions – strong independent unions working together, co-ordinating campaigns and
lobbying. We’re ideally situated to
meet regularly with relevant MPs
– at the mass lobbies of Parliament
that NUS organises the turnout
is often embarrassing. We will be
more effective acting without the
cumbersome monolith.
The pro-NUS camp will idealistically talk about the voice NUS will
offer us, the solidarity we’ll develop,
the resources for union officers and
the benefits for every student. We
are only able, however, to join one
version of NUS – the real-world
version, and that couldn’t be further from the ideals that it should
espouse.
NUS has much to gain from Imperial joining, yet we have little to
tempt us bar the chance of 10% off
at Topshop.
Let’s save our cash, our time, and
the trips to Blackpool, and instead
plough that resource into working
actively with other unions and improving services right here.

Everybody needs a good neighbours’ liaison officer

E

Brian Falzon
“I have amassed
a comprehensive
list of all the
creative ways in
which students
manage to get
themselves into
trouble”

very warden at Imperial
has an added remit related to the role of liaison.
For example, one warden
is the liaison for issues
regarding the Health Centre, another with Registry for disciplinary hearings etc.
I am the Neighbours liaison. I’m
not entirely sure how this was actually assigned. It could be because
I am ‘battle-hardened’ – having
dealt diplomatically with a hurl of
abuse from one particular neighbour on more than one occasion
before such roles were officially
assigned.
Or, hailing from Australia, someone thought it amusing to assign
me the role of liaison with the
namesake of that atrocious Aussie
soap opera!
Being in my penultimate year as
warden of Fisher Hall in Evelyn
Gardens (appointments are made
for a fixed period) I have amassed
a comprehensive list of all the creative ways in which students manage to get themselves into trouble.
For the most part, getting up to
some mischief is all good fun but
the funny side is not always appreciated by private residents
who live in the neighbourhood or
indeed by the wardening team
who often have to deal with the

consequences.
And a particular neighbourhood
it is indeed, where the cost of an
average two-bedroom flat is comparable to the GDP of a small
country and the standard vehicle
of choice is either a Porsche, Maserati, or a Chelsea tractor.
A few years ago I had to discipline one of my student residents
to make him understand that it
was not acceptable behaviour to
urinate on one of these possessions, parked outside Fisher, while
his mate took photos.
Neither was it acceptable for one
student to be lowered, on a rope,
by a friend, from a 3rd-storey window to a 2nd-storey one, to be let
back into his room.
Noise is a particular problem.
It only takes a few individuals in
a high density accommodation
environment to generate a level
of noise which can quickly annoy
neighbours.
Noise curfews are in place at all
halls of residents at Evelyn Gardens but these rules are, regrettably, sometimes flouted. So, on a
number of occasions my wardening team has had to diplomatically
handle calls from very irate neighbours: “… yes sir … of course sir
... we will look into it straight away
… yes … no sir, they’re not all ani-

mals actually …”
Over the years I have attended
Kensington and Chelsea Police
Community Panel and Neighbourhood Watch meetings where I
was able to meet neighbours and
police officers and discuss issues
which were of relevance to halls of
residence.
Most neighbours are quite happy
to have students around them but
it is the intolerant few which we, as
the wardening team, need to placate. This task is made easier when
students respect the fact that liv-

“It could be
because I
am ‘battlehardened’”
ing in an area which was recently
referred to as the most expensive
real estate in the world brings with
it certain added responsibilities.
Considering the concentration
of students that we have at Evelyn
Gardens, the number of incidents
are comparatively low.
There are also certain advantages: local businesses love the extra
commerce that the students bring

and some offer substantial discounts. The restaurant Tampopo,
for example, gives a 20% discount
with a student card. A number of
other outlets regularly give us free
items to use as raffle prizes.
The fact that students don’t bring
cars down to London also means
that parking congestion is less
than it would be if Evelyn Gardens
was all residents.
And I wonder how many burglars
have been scared off by the nocturnal habits of some of our students.

Got anything
you would like
to share with
our readers?
Please send all
contributions to
comment.felix@
imperial.ac.uk

Friday 3 November 2006

felix

COMMENT & OPINION

Wielding the
mighty organ

comment.felix@imperial.ac.uk

Reasons for voting ‘yes’
Why I don’t want ICU to be the most isolated union in London

Andy Sykes
Editor-in-chief

John Collins

F

I

ear not, dear reader, for I have returned from
my editorial hiatus, and I’d like to get a few
things straight. Firstly, I didn’t put myself on
the front page. I was graduating at the time,
and my deputy editors were in charge. When
I returned on Thursday, my face had become the front
page picture story, and they weren’t really happy about
removing it. Secondly, my response to Rupert’s letter
has generated a lot of complaints, and I’ve tried to reply
to all those that took the time to write in individually. If
you feel something is missing from Felix, or that I’m doing a terrible job and should be replaced with an educated chimp and a typewriter, then you should tell me. I will
reply personally to any email sent to me that’s obviously
a “Dear Editor” letter. I am only capable of generally directing Felix in a particular direction, not generating the
content personally – that’s down to you, the readers.
A few of you that approached me while I was distributing the papers seemed upset about the loss of Page3-which-was-never-on-page-3. “Where are the titties?”
they asked. One young lady wondered if she’d ever get
see the rugby team sans shirts again. Well, fear not, for
Felix has a very talented photographer, and a willing list
of people to get naked (no, not you again, Luke Taylor).
Your gratitious nudity will return next term.
Though you’re probably sick to the back teeth of it,
next week’s Felix will be a NUS referendum special,
with both the Yes and No campaigns doing their best to
convince you that their cause is the right one. You can be
assured that Felix as a whole is neutral, though the team
have their own opinions on NUS affiliation.
I would relate an anecdote in this space, but this week
the staff have chained me to a Mac so I can’t escape to
the bar. If anyone is reading this, please help.

A retraction
Stephen Brown
Comment Editor
Last week I was inadvertently very naughty, mainly due
to my copying and pasting frames from previous issues.
I expressed opinions on the upcoming referendum in my
editorial, which referendum regulations say I should not
have done in my capacity as a sub-editor of Felix since
the newspaper has no opinion on such matters. I would
just like readers to know that my opinions were written
in a personal capacity and that Felix is unbiased in this
debate and apologise if my editorial implied otherwise.

mperial has been outside the National Union of Students (NUS)
for nearly thirty years and in two
weeks time we will be faced with
that age old question once again:
should Imperial College Union affiliate
to the NUS?
All Union Presidents get asked this
question pretty regularly and now that
I have been officially relieved of my duties as Returning Officer for this referendum I finally have the freedom to
share my personal views with you on
this subject. Of course, these views are
mine alone and do not represent the position of ICU or any of its committees or
constituent parts. But they are shared
by many prominent leaders within the
Union, including some of my predecessors and colleagues.
Unlike most London student unions,
ICU has been affiliated to the University of London Union (ULU) but not to the
NUS since the 1970s. We presently pay
around £79,000 each year to ULU and
they use this money to run bars at Malet
Street that our students rarely visit and
manage clubs and societies that (with a
handful of exceptions) directly compete
with our own. The only real benefits we
get from being part of ULU are that we
get access to ULU sports leagues, access to other student union officers and
support for our campaigns. Sadly, from
2007 we will no longer be allowed to be
part of ULU as our dear Rector is leading Imperial College out of its parent institution, the University of London, and
into new territory of independence.
Our withdrawal from ULU will result
in two significant consequences: firstly,
we will ultimately be £79,000 per annum
richer. Secondly, we will have no means

of promoting any welfare or political issue that falls outside the jurisdiction of
Imperial College.
Now we could spend our newly acquired £79,000 p.a. on beer, but I suggest that this is not the most mature
or inclusive way of allocating ICU’s resources. We could spend it on our clubs,
and we do plan to spend some of it on
compensation for those clubs that will
be adversely affected by our withdrawal
from ULU. However, with all this spare
money floating about, should we not be
looking at the bigger picture?
When we leave ULU next year we will
undoubtedly become the most isolated
student union in London. We will have
minimal influence on any debate that
takes place outside our campuses, reducing our capacity to represent the
views of our members. Should ICU
wish to campaign on top-up fees, student debt, Council tax, tenancy law, the
Oyster Card, the Congestion Charge,
the Charity Bill, or anything else that
our Rector has no control over, then
frankly speaking, we would be powerless to influence these debates.

“The NUS provides
support services to
affiliate unions”
Imagine if you were a cabinet minister or an editor of a national newspaper
and you were approached by two student leaders who both wanted to raise
an issue with you that their constituents felt strongly about. Now imagine if
one of them spoke for 12,000 students
and the other for 5 million. Who would
you listen to?
Whether you like it or not, there is
only one body in the United Kingdom
that speaks for UK students on a national level and that is the NUS. Do not
come under any illusion that the media
remotely cares about what we, as Imperial students, think about national issues – we simply have no voice.
We may be the third best university in
the country, but the rest of the top 10
universities’ student unions are all affiliates of the NUS; we’re really not that
important. Not only are the likes of Ox-

ford, Cambridge, the LSE, UCL, Warwick, Kings, Manchester, Bristol, and
Edinburgh members of NUS, but they
are also leading players within it.
The NUS provides support services
to affiliate unions. I strongly doubt that
ICU would be able to employ a strong
team of professional lawyers, researchers, lobbyists, regional liaison officers,
campaigns support staff, and officer development staff with just £52,000. Many
of the benefits of these services may not
be immediately obvious to our students,
but they are nonetheless important.
For example, presently we rely heavily
on the College for legal support, which
is helpful when ICU is being threatened with legal action from an external
source; but what do we do if the College
themselves are using lawyers against
us (as has happened in the past)?
The NUS can mobilise its resources
to achieve things that individual unions
simply cannot manage on their own. I
am currently working through the process of closing down a small section of
the Prince Consort Road for our Centenary Ball – a time consuming and complex task. Last Sunday the NUS closed
down two miles of streets in Central
London (and Trafalgar Square) for a
national demonstration against top-up
fees. No other student led organisation
can do that!
Of course the most obvious benefit
of being in the NUS is that all Imperial
students would be able to obtain official
NUS discount cards, which are widely
recognised outside the South Kensington area and throughout the rest of the
UK.
I fully accept that the NUS has its
faults and I believe that there is much
that we can do to improve it; but I also
believe that we have absolutely no
chance of changing the NUS whilst we
stay out. Even though Edinburgh only
affiliated last year, they have already
established themselves as the leaders of a growing movement for reform
within the NUS and I expect that if we
affiliate this autumn then we would fully
support and strengthen their cause.
So when I come to vote on November
14th, I will say “yes” to a national voice,
“yes” to professional support for our
officers, “yes” to reform, and “yes” to
discount cards.

BST is not for me, says Hugh Stickley-Mansfield
Last Sunday marked the end of British
Summer Time for another year, bringing with it the twice-annual irritation of
adjusting all the clocks to hand, a task
made even more arduous by the inclusion of clocks in pretty much every electronic device littered around the average home.
What is doubly galling about this is
that most of these are damn-near impossible to adjust, meaning that for the
next six months many people will be
constantly lied to by their microwaves or
setting the wrong things to record with
their set-top boxes, and so on. This year
sees the ninetieth anniversary of the introduction of this less-than-marvellous
innovation which has been with us (on
and off, of course) since 1916, following
the Defence of the Real Act of 1914, one
of a number of wartime measures such
as banning kite-flying, feeding bread
to wild animals, or buying alcohol on
public transport, and various powers of
censorship and requisition on the part
of the government.

Fortunately for the kite-flyers of Britain, most of DORA’s provisions have
since been removed, but BST still remains. The reasons for BST are sensible enough – to shift the hours of sunlight to when they would be of most use
in order to increase productivity and reduce accidents. However, this does not
address the issue of why winter should
have to revert to GMT – given the lack
of sunlight at the best of times, why
fiddle around with the clocks at all? In
fact, from 1968 to 1971 this was indeed
the case, but this was unpopular with
the Scottish, amongst others, since
dawn would approach noon.
There is a libertarian argument
against any legislation in the matter,
since it should be up to individual organisations and people as to how they
organise their days, rather than have
government dictate sudden shifts that
may be merely irritating, but also potentially unhealthy. As an insomniac, I
dread the approach of BST each spring,
as it often denies me an hour of my al-

ready scarce sleep. This is in addition to
owning considerably more clocks than
is strictly neccessary (in common with
George III, who was considerably more
obsessive about timekeeping, and was
fortunate enough not to have to contend
with any such troubling notions as daylight savings), making the whole concept of BST utterly unappealing to me.
Perhaps it would be different if I lived in
somewhere like Brixton or World’s End,
in which case I might well care more
about whether or not I would be walking home in the dark than I would about
wasting half an hour every six months
and having my sleeping habits out of
kilter for the first fortnight in April.
Though worse still is forgetting about
the whole thing, leading to running an
hour late for much of the day or to being an hour early and losing any benefit
that might come from a potential hour
extra spent in bed. Or compounding the
error by turning clocks forward when
they should go back, or vice versa. Not
that I did that this year, I assure you.

10

Friday 3 November 2006

felix

LETTERS

felix@imperial.ac.uk

Letters to the editor
The first batch of complaints have hit our inbox, driven mainly
by the ex-editor’s letter and the slightly snappy response

Dear Editor,
I was a bit disappointed to read
your reply to Rupert Neate’s letter
in the last Felix. Okay, his letter was
rather confrontational, and indeed
some lesser editors would probably
not have had the balls to publish it,
but I take issue with your comment
that your editorial was “backed up
by the opinion of the general College population”. In fact, pretty
much everyone I know in College
thinks that this year’s Felix has by
and large been less interesting and
enjoyable to read than last year’s.
Possibly this is due to us only having seen the first few issues, but
there is an almost universal opinion
amongst Felix-readers that whilst
this year’s may on the whole be
better written, with fewer spelling
mistakes and grammatical errors,
it is simply less interesting and
entertaining than last year’s Felix.
The news doesn’t seem very pressing, possibly because there’s not
much about, but more importantly
the rest of the newspaper just takes
itself too seriously and does not really have any light-hearted, ‘enjoyable’ stuff in, perhaps forgetting
that it is a student newspaper and
not the Financial Times.
My opinion is that you can only
aim as high, culturally, as the quality of your writing can allow and unfortunately, due to the nature of our
university, writers of quality content are in short supply, so aiming
too high culturally can easily result
in ending up being plain boring.
Regards,
Chris Thomas
PS I won’t be too surprised if you
don’t publish any of this letter, but
I hope you take the opinion on
board.

PhD Comics

Dear Editor,
I feel compelled to write to you
about your response to Rupert
Neate’s letter (Page 8, Felix 1361).
The comment that your previous editorial about last year’s Felix “backed up the feelings of the
general population of the college”
seems completely at odds with my
own experiences. As a fourth year
student, I can say that Felix under
Mr Neate was a far more entertaining read than it had been previously. Furthermore, I have yet to speak
to anyone who disagrees with this
sentiment. In contrast, I am somewhat unimpressed this year with
front page stories about your own
graduation.
I’m sure it’s too early in the year
to judge your own editorial skills,
but it would be a good idea to learn
from your predecessors success
rather than to belittle it.
Regards,
John Lyle
Andy Sykes, Editor, writes:
Dear Chris and John,
Of course I’d print your letter, Chris;
it is not in my interest to censor bad
feeling about the newspaper.
As all the letters about my response were negative, I will admit
that my viewpoint seems to be in
the minority. I, of course, saw things
from a different angle, working for
the newspaper and having been
involved in Felix for many years. I
admire Rupert’s courage in taking
on both the College and the Union,
but I believe on several occasions
he far overstepped the mark. Many
students did not know what happened behind the scenes, such the
dissatisfaction within the editorial
team about the editor’s management style.
You do go on to make a counterstatement that is as broadly sweeping as my own. In my defence, I’ve

had a number of people approach
me and say they’re enjoying the
paper more now than previously,
and a number approach me and say
the exact opposite. I think and hope
that we’re slowly improving; I was
still recruiting team members until
recently.
To deal with your second point
about entertaining content - I unfortunately lost the beloved Hoff
this year, as he has graduated, and
his replacement hasn’t been able
to work due to excessive commitments. I’m working hard to restore
something on a par with the Hoff,
even if it isn’t outwardly visible. As
the new staff grow more confident,
so their sections become more
interesting.
As to the graduation photo story,
well, I didn’t do it. I was, obviously,
graduating as the paper was coming
out, so I handed over what I could to
my deputy editors. When I finished
the front page on Wednesday, it
was the Tibetan protest outside the
hotel in Kensington High Street.
When I returned on Thursday, it
had changed to a photo of myself
looking like a complete moron.
The news in College and the Union has been somewhat slow of late,
as I’m sure you’ve noticed; there’s
not much I can do about that, I’m
afraid.
What really riles me, and what
Chris has pointed out, is that I am
not responsible for the content of
the newspaper even though I am
generally held to account for it.
My entire life is spent in the office,
more or less, but I cannot write everything. The bottom line is: you provide the content. If you’re not happy
with something, come and speak to
me. I’m always ready to hear new
ideas.
As for the comment about learning from my predecessors - that is
exactly what I’ve done. I’ve been
involved long enough, and seen
four editors come and go, to pick up
knowledge and skills.
I hope you find this issue more
enjoyable.

Do you have an
opinion about
Felix in general,
or do you have a
grievience that you
wish to air?
Write to us:
felix@imperial.ac.uk
We print all letters
received. Honest.
Daylight Savings Time
SYNDICATED FROM WWW.PHDCOMICS.COM

We liked the
old Felix better

unionpage
Don’t Be Afraid Of The Dark

GSA

Health & Safety Advice

Update

Recently, in the Union we have been informed of some quite
concerning incidents regarding the personal safety of students in
and around the South Kensington area. It is important especially
at this time of year when the clocks have gone back and the
dark nights are drawing in that students are aware of their
surroundings.
The Information and Advice Centre can help if you have any
concerns regarding personal safety. We can give out free personal
attack alarms as well as give free booklets to students which can
give you common sense advice when walking the streets at night.
Below are a few quick tips for you to take on board:
• If you are going out make sure you know where you are going
and have a planned route. It is good practice to tell people where
you are going if you travelling on your own.
• When walking around look conﬁdent, be purposeful and be
alert to your surroundings. People who look conﬁdent are less
likely to be attacked.
• Try to avoid taking shortcuts through dark alleywas or parks, as
this will increase the amount of risk you will be in as it will often
be hard to see what is around you.
• Try not to draw attention to your valuables especially at night, keep
things like mobile phones and iPods well hidden from people.
• Avoid walking past parked cars with their engines running and
people sitting in them.

has quite a big problem with
unlicensed mini-cabs.
• If you are stranded somewhere
and need to take a taxi, ensure
that you use a licensed mini cab
or licensed black taxi.
• It is always better to book a taxi
in advance rather than trying to
hail one late at night.

Nigel Cooke
Student Adviser
advice@imperial.ac.uk

• If you can, try to share a cab
home with friends.
• Conﬁrm the details of the cab driver before entering the car to
ensure it actually is your cab.
• Make sure you sit in the back if you are on your own and ensure
that you leave all doors unlocked.
These are just a few quick tips to bear in mind when you are going
about your daily life. If you have concerns regarding personal
safety then please do not hesitate to contact the Information
and Advice Centre, other people that can help include College
Security or the local police.
The main thing to remember is to always be aware of your
surroundings and donʼt take risks that you donʼt need to.

• If you are travelling by bus try to sit near the driver, or if by
train try to sit in a busy carriage.

Donʼt let your concern turn into a crisis make The Information
and Advice Centre your one stop shop for all your welfare
needs.

It is also important to be aware, when you are trying to get
home late at night, of the transport you are getting into, London

Tel: 020 7594 8067
E-mail: advice @imperial.ac.uk

panache|

Now that the term is under
way the Graduate Studentsʼ
Association has started the ball
rolling with our ﬁrst meeting
which took place last week.
We had lots of enthusiastic
ideas and the wine was
ﬂowing…no, not the last part
alas. Ideas included comedy
nights, weekend trips to other
Deputy President
cities (within England and
abroad!), fashion shows and
(Graduate Students)
quite interestingly, a sports
tournament
between
the dpgs@imperial.ac.uk
Graduate Schools in as many
number of sports as there is interest in (kickball, anyone?
Itʼs a cross between dodgeball and baseball in fancy dress).
Most urgently though, we discussed the GSA Christmas
Ball on Monday 11th of December. This is looking set to be
a fantastic event with comedians, break-dancers, mulled
wine (non-alcoholic as well) and a 3-course meal. There
are also rumours of jugglers, casino and vodka/fruit punch
“luges” with an ice bar and all of this for £25. Tickets will
be on sale very shortly.

Shama Rahman

In the very near future though, I would like to announce
a landmark event between the Royal College of Music,
the Royal College of Art and Imperial for a postgraduate
night on Thursday the 9th of November. It promises to be
a night of eclectic music and people. A chance to meet the
neighbours!
Hope to see you there!
Shama

the

fashion fusion noël

imperial
collection

THE IMPERIAL COLLEGE
CHARITY FASHION SHOW
FRIDAY
3RD NOVEMBER 06 | 7:30pm
GREAT HALL, SHERFIELD BUILDING,
SOUTH KENSINGTON,

Website Success
Update on imperialcollegeunion.org
The Union website imperialcollegeunion.org has been going
from strength to strength since the beginning of term. Last
Month (October) the site served nearly half a million pages and
7.5 million requests. The busiest day was the 4th October, the
day after Freshersʼ Fair, with over 28,000 pages served.
A big thanks to all of you who have visited the site and used its
services. Keep checking the site for the latest Union news and
Club & Society Information.

Albums new and not so new
This week Felix goes over some albums recently released to a summertime record

Deftones
Saturday Night Wrist
(Maverick)
★★★★✩
As soon as the drums kick into the
opener of Deftones’ fifth studio effort, Hole in the Earth, you know
they are onto a winner. Immediately the hairs on the back of your
neck stand up as the huge drums
and driving guitars throw you into
the opening vocals delivered so
effortlessly by frontman Chino
Moreno. It is the perfect opener to
the Sacramento quintet’s Saturday
Night Wrist, and what follows is a
mixture of brutal riffs and ambient
melodies reminiscent of the heavily
acclaimed White Pony and to some
extent 2003’s Deftones.
Beware is a crushingly heavy,
slow tempo, bass-driven song
which leads the listener into the
brilliantly-sung chorus. There are
some beautifully melodic moments
on Saturday Night Wrist; from the
haunting opening atmosphere of
Cherry Wave to the vocal performance by Moreno on the first half
of the final track, Riviere. However that’s not to say this album
doesn’t rock, the opening samples of Combat lead into aggressive vocals of Moreno screaming,
“Whose side are you on?”. Rapture
is full of driving riffs and uptempo
drum beats, and the breakdown in
Rat!Rats!Rats! is just plain brutal!
This song alone would satisfy any
pre-White Pony fan.
That’s not to say this album doesn’t
have its faults, in fact this is the album which almost broke the band.
Guitarist Stef Carpenter admitted
on several occasions that they almost “threw Chino out”, due to him
leaving the recording of his vocals
to tour with his side project, Team
Sleep. Indeed, as with the song
Lucky you on its predecessor, there
is an obvious Team Sleep moment
on Saturday Night Wrist. Pink Cellphone features the vocals of Giant
Drags’ Anne Hardy, and seems out
of place on the album. Not so much
a classic Deftones song, but more
of an electronic beat over which
Hardy delivers weird spoken-word
lyrics, at times cringingly explicit
for no real reason. There is also a
guest appearance from System of
a Down’s Serj Tankian on the track
Mei, which again seems pointless
and out of place on a Deftones album and I feel they could have used
bassist Chi Cheng’s guttural vocals
on the heavier songs.
Overall, Saturday Night Wrist
manages to perfectly balance the

elements of the bands past to create an original sounding record in
a time when many of their contemporaries are content to re-package
established, and often outdated,
trends. Whether Saturday Night
Wrist receives as much praise as
2000’s White Pony will remain to
be seen when it is released. In my
opinion this album deserves to be
ranked within the top 3 of their back
catalogue.
Christian Maine

neyed politically-correct moralising
that makes me want to reach for a
bucket.
Because inevitably and here’s the
crunch, Trivium suck – There’s just
no way round it. Trivium really do
give Mr. Dyson something to worry
about; no matter how hard they try
not to (and there’s certainly been
a smidgen of effort here), and definitely no matter how technically
they can play, it still ends up as an
ultimately forgettable album.
To start with, Trivium need to
learn the definition of irony (noone
really knows the definition – Ed),
as the name itself suggests either
much sarcasm or an inferiority
complex, something that this band
seems to eke the complete opposite
of. On the plus side at least, I give it
to them for having the cheek to try
and make another Master of Puppets, even if The Crusade is nothing
more than Garbage Inc.
Alex McKitrick

Trivium
The Crusade
(Roadrunner)
★✩✩✩✩
This being the Kerrang darlings’
sophomore album, a term that resonates pretty well with a band that
was once described as playing like
a bunch of fifteen year-olds. I doubt
their fans could tell the difference
though, since most of them are fifteen (chronologically or otherwise).
Despite this, you can’t accuse them
of having no ambition; and perhaps
a little too much at that! Now then,
this album certainly isn’t the first in
that general shift by mainstream
metal from the hugely irritating
screamo craze back towards retrotastic hair metal, even if this album
is admittedly most evocative of the
thrash classics by the likes of Metallica and Megadeth. The band can
even turn out copycat Kerry King
solos and work in some interesting time signatures at times. It just
makes you wonder what they could
have achieved without such an annoying front-man!
Unashamedly my main problem
here is with Matt Heafy. Now he
may have been helped into the saddle by the fact that his dad runs a
record company, and I don’t really
hold a grudge against him for that.
I don’t even get that irate at the fact
he plays the late ‘Dimebag’ Darrell’s old guitar. But I can’t forgive
him for consistently falling into awful cheese-laden ballads in virtually
every song, or for that matter, the
entire length of This World Can’t
Tear Us Apart. BLEURGH!
Here is where it goes horribly, horribly wrong: For tonight Matthew,
Heafy is going to be performing as
James Hetfield – a premise that is
neither original nor anywhere near
the original; thus we end up with
some of the worst, wincing, tonedeaf drawling I have ever heard.
The lyrics on this record, now
(unfortunately) clearly audible,
clearly consist of the kind of hack-

Cherish
Unappreciated
(Parlophone)
★★★✩✩
This self-named album from the
four Atlanta sisters leaves nothing
to the imagination. It is an un-encouraging Jazzy Pha production.
This album has very little party feel
to it. It’s all about boys. Don't women have anything else to sing about
other than boys?
We have the very crunk track Do
It To It, which basically tells you
to get into the ATL style of dancing and which sounds like a female
and less aggressive version of Lil’
Jon’s Do it To It track. The next
track Chevy throws about slangs
non-Atlanta residents would not
understand. Unappreciated is selfexplanatory and Moment in Time,
the sister do show us a bit of their
vocal ability. My favourites are Stop
Calling – not because I would love
to play this track to all bugaboos but
it actually shows that the girls take
time to sing about the odd things
women experience – and OOOH because it raises a lot of issues young
teenagers and women go through
in today’s society.
This does sound like a standard
girl-group album; trying hard to
cover all the basics about relationships and recording it, or four girls
who have always dreamt of being
stars. At the end of the day this album is not great but one would definitely find something to relate to.
Folake Adegbohun

Matty Hoban
Music Editor
Tapes’n’Tapes
The Loon
(XL Records)
★★★★✩
Hailing from Minnesota, USA,
Tapes’n’Tapes offer up a quirky
slice of indie-pop for our listening
pleasures in the form of this, their
debut album. The music itself is
simple enough, just guitars, drums,
bass and vocals. In fact the opener
of the album is called Just Drums
and is easily the best opening track
to an album I’ve heard in a while.
It kicks into life with an infectious
beat and a catchy riff, and when it
breaks down in the bridge to – you
guessed it – just the drums, then
bringing the rest of the band back
in it shows the band at their very
best. It’s so intense and brilliant
when it all comes together that I
usually can’t help but rewind it and
listen to it again.
The album never quite manages
to reach this high again, and indeed
some of the album is quite boring
and a couple of songs miss the mark
and just get annoying after a few
listens. This hit-and-miss approach
does pay off in places though, because the hits are just that. Tracks
like Cowbell and lead single Insistor really grab your attention with
their foot-tapping beats and curiously hum-able melodies.
This isn’t to say that Tapes’n’Tapes
are a one-trick pony though, and
they demonstrate their versatility
with some slower, delicate, (whisper it) ballads. Songs like Omaha
and 10 Gallon Ascots are slowburning anthems which provide
beautiful counterpoints to the fastpaced singles and give the album a
good balance.
Not all of the album works, and
songs like The Iliad seem more
like b-sides than the more albumworthy material. The singer’s voice
can also be grating at times, and his
high-pitched, almost whiny style
could put some people of the band
altogether.
Overall this album probably won’t
change your life, and it isn’t really
anything incredibly original either,
but it is a very well crafted set of
songs which are fun to both listen
and dance to as well. Hopefully the
band can take the best from what
we have seen on offer here, leaving
behind the rest, and create a superior second album which would
surely be a classic in the waiting.
Until then though – get this, enjoy
most of it and just forget about the
rest.
Toby Prudden

O

h my sweet Jesus
of Nazareth – the
film version – do
we have a lot of
reviews for you this
week. Sorry about the anaemic
state of last week’s music section, I had little time as I was at a
(brilliant) gig and was feeling under the weather. Also, I apologise
for the focus on guitar bands, I
was trying to add a bit of a theme
to tame the excellent yet random
nature of this section.
This week we have some
albums ranging from the new
Deftones album released this
week to an album from the summer getting some overdue attention. In these album reviews we
cover alt-rock, metal, indie-rock
and R’n’B. Variety I believe is the
spice of life (along with a pinch
of nutmeg) so if you feel you can
add more variety then whip over
some reviews to us and we’ll put
them in and keep you informed
about our reviewing possibilities.
We’ve also got a singles roundup, and a live review of blues
great, Walter Trout. I hope this
meaty selection is whetting
your appetite for the bonanza of
content that will be November’s
FeMM or Felix Music Monthly.
Yes, we are staying true to our
word and putting one out every
month. Next week will be when
you can happily pull it out and
study it in front of everyone, and
you can pick up FeMM out of
Felix as well.
For next week we hope to have
more columns, reviews, features
and listings. We are going to dissect music in hideously beautiful
ways for your reading pleasure.
You’ll be baying for more by then
end, and we might give it to you,
you dirty people.
In other news, we have another
Kids Will Be Skeletons gig night
in the union on Sunday November 5th. If you are stuck for
ways to celebrate the murder of
trecherous Catholics, then come
on down. We want to celebrate
revolution as opposed to repression on this day. So we have two
bands from France, the original
country of revolution, coming
over to play.
Entry is £3 for students and
£2.50 for alternative music and
jazz and rock society members.
Again the reason for the door
price is to cover the transport
for the French bands. Expect
a riotous night in the spirit of
revolution

14

Friday 3 November 2006

felix

MUSIC

music.felix@imperial.ac.uk

So many fish puns, so little time
live review

Walter Trout and The Radicals
Mean Fiddler
To most Imperial students the
name Walter Trout probably sounds
like little more than a crap name
for a fish. However, for fans of contemporary blues-rock, this guy and
his band, The Radicals, are one
of the most exciting blues outfits
around, with a highly enviable live
reputation.
All of this was totally unknown
to me when a couple of weeks ago
a friend asked me if I wanted to go
and see a blues guitarist called Walter Trout. Intrigued by the name I
agreed, despite having only a passing interest in blues music, and boy

was I impressed with the result.
Put simply, the gig was awesome.
The guy clearly has a large set of
very devoted fans and the reception afforded to him before, during and after his performance was
probably the warmest I’ve seen at
the Mean Fiddler, and not without
merit. From the first minute, the
Trout stormed through a selection
of blues and rock songs, with a hefty
dose of some very entertaining and
exciting improvisation thrown in.
A technical fault with the band’s
keyboard equipment meant the
keyboard player was redundant for
the duration of the gig, so the band
performed as a power trio, something the Trout declared he hadn’t
done since he was 18 years old, an
age which judging by his appearance was probably a few decades
ago. The result of this was a gig
played louder, faster and heavier
than normal, with both audience
and band quite clearly loving it. The
set-list included some classic Trout
songs from his first albums as well

as a few from his latest album Full
Circle. Highlights included the
song Walking in the Rain, and
some blazing improvisations, with
the Trout declaring, “For 20 seconds in that song I was hallucinating. I thought I was Jimmy Page”.
Indeed his guitar playing was top
class all night, and at times reaching the kind of speed that no shred
guitarist would be ashamed of, but
always in his own blues-rock style.
On the down side, whilst the lack
of keyboard perhaps made for a
more ‘fun’ gig, the music did at
times seem slightly bare without
them, and it was a shame the band
weren’t able to perform as they had
planned.
Overall though it was a great gig
with a lot of memorable moments,
and which was a lot more fun than
I had expected. I would strongly
advise anyone with even a passing
interest in blues or blues-rock to go
and see Walter Trout if he comes to
London again – I know I will.
Christopher Thomas

RICHARD BOYLES

He plays much better than he looks, but then that can’t be hard

Now for our weekly singles round-up
single reviews
Justin Timberlake
My Love
(Sony BMG)
★★★✩✩
While the futuristic-funk of SexyBack was a little too reminiscent
of Nelly Furtado's first two 2006 singles (Man-eater and Promiscuous
both also produced by Timbo), My
Love tears a page out of the book
of 2003’s mega-hit Cry Me A River.
Even the anti-JT music lovers have
to admit that when he hooked up
with Timbaland in 2003 magic was
made. The Britney-bashing Cry
Me a River helped blur the line between ballad and club record and
enabled Justin to excel on a slow
song despite his weak falsetto.
The emotion and skill which was
lacking in
the vocal performance was just
poured into the
lush production and the
international
hit
was
born.
My Love
is a close
relative but
not so
close
as to
dis-

miss it as lacking in originality.
From the manic laughter that goes
on in the background during the
chorus to the rap verse, courtesy
of the Rubberband Man himself,
T.I. all tricks available are used to
sell this song and truth be told it all
works very well. My Love is destined to hang about at the top of the
charts for a while.
Fans that are able to forgive the
cheesy come-ons, see past the little boy who cried to his mommy on
Punk'd and left Janet to take the
blame for the infamous ‘Superboob’
stunt might actually take him seriously in the role of lover man. In
Justin’s best interest we’ll just pretend the awful Let Me Talk To You
(Interlude) rap didn’t happen.
Jemil Salami

Sohodolls
No Regrets
(Filthy Pretty)
★★★★✩
Musically, this is pretty standard,
but very well done, electro-fare.
Carefully considered vintage synths
layer a sparse aural landscape
while just-so guitar lines jump in to
vie for attention.
Right at the start of the fairly perambulatory verse, singer Maya von
Doll sets the tone, delivering with
a sultry drawl: "Hotter than your
average bitch, flick on, flick on my
switch".
No messing about here, what
she lacks in creative rhyming she
makes up for with brazen sexual allure, playing on male fantasies of
the confident sex-kitten they
would like to meet in that
sweaty indie-disco of a
saturday night.
The
electrotrash
sentiment
con-

tinues into the chorus, as she chants
"Take me, I want a test. Take me, I'll
have no regrets" over an annoyingly
wonderful synth chord pattern. The
music is clean, sparse and Kraftwerkian in it's clinicalness, but the
lyrics are seductive filth.
The whole thing is very selfconciously cool and comes over a
bit gittishly trendy-scenester so I
found myself disliking the single on
principle, which is wrong because
it's really rather good. Plus they're
a bit like Goldfrapp, but sluttier
– which can only be good.
Adrian Nightingale

The Good, The Bad & The Queen
Herculean
(Parlophone)
★★★★★
I have never been much of a fan of
Blur. Most of their supposed classics
leave me rather underwhelmed, although some are pleasant enough.
Gorillaz, also, do nothing for me, despite my usual appreciation of Danger Mouse's work. As such, I have
never understood why so many
people consider Damon Albarn to
be some sort of musical genius,
and I certainly wasn't expecting
much from his unnamed new band.
However, on the strength of this
first single from their forthcoming
concept album about London; The
Good, The Bad & The Queen, I have
to admit to being very pleasantly
surprised.
Herculean is a whimsical, hopeful
song with an almost ethereal quality to it; there is a simple, almost
stark quality to the melody, and
the harmonies are equally understated. The lyrics speak of canals,
gasworks and the welfare state and
in a few brief stanzas succeed in
evoking a strong sense of place. As
such, lyrically, it might not appeal so
strongly to those not as enamoured
of the Capital, but it is at heart an
astounding piece of music.
Hugh Stickley Mansfield

Various Artists
Janie Jones (Strummerville)
(B-Unique)
★★★★✩
The 30th October will see the release of single Janie Jones originally performed by the Clash, now
re-recorded by a number of artists
for charity. Babyshambles, Carl
Barat, The Rakes, We Are Scientists and The Kooks are just a few
of the artists who appear on the single. On the b-side is a solo version
of the track by Pete Doherty which
we happened to get hold of. Now I
personally love the Libertines, but
never really latched onto Babyshambles. However, given what the
guys pulling himself out of, I was
impressed. He sounds back on form
and I thoroughly enjoyed the track.
Obviously the song itself is a piece
of songwriting genius by The Clash
and only they can perform it to perfection, but I feel he does it justice.
All proceeds from the release will
go to Strummerville (Joe Strummer’s foundation for new music)
Sam Lombard

FeMM November
Next week we will be having
our second Felix Music Monthly. Hopefully we will have the
following in it:
More opinion columns and
reviews
Interviews with The Cooper
Temple Clause and Battle
Features on the independent
media and Little Bird Project
A possible gig listing section

Friday 3 November 2006

felix

NIGHTLIFE

nightlife.felix@imperial.ac.uk

Adventures in Farringdon
Fabric’s seventh birthday celebrations fail to deliver promised root vegetables
Adventures In The
Beetroot Field
Fabric
HHHHI
Being the totally dedicated reviewer that I am, I decided to take this
club review from a different angle:
a sober one. Yes indeed, I did not
drink a single beverage during our
evening at Fabric, mainly for the
somewhat stupid reason that I decided to drive there, although for
the sake of this review, I’ll say that
it was so I could fully appreciate the
wonder of the many acts I was planning to see, who did indeed turn out
to be quite wondrous, and perfect
for the final night of the Fabric 7th
birthday celebrations.
By the time we had worked out
how the hell to drive to Farringdon
from South Kensington, it was
about 11pm, so the place was fairly
busy when we arrived. Although not
so full as to make it uncomfortable,
the atmosphere was very friendly
and, as expected, it was not full of
obnoxiously drunk wankers (probably due to the fairly high drinks
prices) and in fact everyone was
rather smartly dressed, giving the
place a feel of what Trash might be

Simian Mobile Disco

like if one thousand people could fit
in The End on a Monday night.
It was also somewhat refreshing to go to a club with this kind
of music with mainly middle-class,
trendy clientele and not have to
queue up waiting for 15 arseholes
charging up on nose-candy to finish
with the cubicles in the toilets. Anyway, enough with the bitching about
pointless stuff – I went here to listen to music, not to rate everyone’s
outfits and hairstyles (although I
did that too – 7/10). So, on with the
review.
Unfortunately, possibly due to the
very confusing layout of Fabric, and
me not noticing that they had set
lists up on the wall near the bar until about 1am, I missed most of the
bands I wanted to see, but the first
full act I did see was the Futureheads DJ set which consisted of a
hilariously varied selection of party
tracks, albeit with somewhat dubious mixing skills, but managing to
pretty much pack out Room 1 for
the duration of their set.
Bored with dancing to the sounds
of the 80s, we ventured over to
Room 3 to catch the middle of the
Sebastian and Kavinsky set, churning out some banging electro beats
and mixing it up to an ultra-packed
room of extremely sweaty, wideeyed electronic junkies. Basically,
they were pretty damn good, possibly nearly as good as their countrymen, Justice (who I recently
saw DJing at Trash), perhaps because their sets sounded pretty
much identical. Who cares though?
I don’t want to hear all this new-fangled rubbish, I was there to listen
to some awesome-asaurus tracks
played by a funny looking little
French dude and some other guy
I most probably would have recognised as Kavinsky if I had known
what he looks like.
Room 3 was definitely the place to
be tonight if you had the energy to

It was a good omen to the start of the
evening when I barely had to walk
to the bus stop and hop on the 360
bus straight to Elephant and Castle, home of Ministry of Sound. As
one of London’s more famous clubs,
I was looking forward to experiencing it for the first time as well as
experiencing my first trance night
Gatecrasher Classics. Expecting
a large queue given its size (2000
capacity), I was surprised to find
the outside empty. I was also somewhat surprised at the unimpressive
outside, not dissimilar to airport
customs with its metal detectors.
However this is a sharp contrast to
the interior of the club. Entry was
£15 (£12 in advance), good value for
a club of M.O.S’s standard and for a
full six hours inside.
Slightly empty at 11.30pm, I felt
the night might not turn out to what
it could have been, especially as
the only clientele there were the

slightly over dressed half heartedly
‘bopping’ away to the electro/funky
house playing. Unperturbed, we
made our way to the V.I.P. lounge
for a drink to wait for the Trance to
come on: the reason we had come.
The lounge itself is very attractive,
spacious with plenty of seating and
with a balcony overlooking the main
room, The Box (at this point still deserted). One slight drawback was
the price of the drinks, with our first
round alone costing well over £20! I
think it’s the only club I have been
to where the Red Bull and bottled
water are the same price. Luckily
for us, our drinks soon kicked in
along with the trance and so we
made our way over to the ever-filling dance floor.
Gatecrasher Classics had Signum,
M.I.K.E. and Rank 1 belting out the
trance classics we had all come for;
the second room, The Bar had Matt
Hardwick, Tylor Leigh and more
giving us some electro as well as
trance later on in the night. Back in
the main room Signum played the
greatly anticipated classic, What
You Got For Me, while throughout
the night the crowd were lucky

Party
time
again!

Alex Baldwin
Nightlife Editor
More people were present on the night, I imagine
dance, and alas, if only I had more
energy and maybe something a little stronger than my glass of water
with extra ice to drink, I’d have
stayed here ‘til closing. However,
giving into my weak body after only
one hour of simultaneously being
compressed against 15 sweaty people whilst trying to stay standing up
I decided to vacate Room 3 to check
out Metronomy in Room 1.
I seemed to remember Alex telling me Metronomy were maybe
quite good and possibly not horrendously rubbish, and indeed, he was
correct. They started off with pretty
simple guitar/synth/dance tracks
but eventually turned the room into
a gyrating mass of fans with their
new-rave, funky electro sounds.
They even had cool lights on their
T-shirts, so what more could you
want? If they didn’t please the
crowd, Filthy Dukes certainly did.
Playing a similar set to Sebastian
in the other room, but with perhaps
less of a house vibe to it, almost eve-

Entranced by Gatecrasher
Gatecrasher Classics
Ministry of Sound
HHHII

15

enough to have Silence-Delirium
played three times! By 1am the
dance floor was heaving but come
3am it had emptied just enough to
give us all that little bit more room
to dance in.
The clientele was pretty mixed
– ranging from regular trance fans
to those not so familiar with the
scene and from the casually attired
to those who really put a lot of effort
into their evening attire. All in all
it didn’t detract from the fact that
everyone was thoroughly enjoying
themselves and getting into the
music.
The great thing about Ministry is
for a large club one never feels like
they could get lost in yet or that it
is over run with people, yet it still
manages to pack a decent sized
crowd in.
All in all Gatecrasher Classics is
a fantastic night for those seeking
something a little different from
London’s mainstream clubs and
also for those used to music of a
harder nature. A perfect introduction to one of London’s more pleasant venues.
Caz Knight

ryone in the club moved to Room 1
for them, and the final act Simian
Mobile Disco who ended the night
on a perfect high.
By 3am most of the people were
starting to leave and we followed
suit, happy that we’d spent a great
night out, although not relishing
the prospects of trying to drive all
the way home (and a warning – the
police hang out in unmarked cars
outside the club, pulling people
over who drive).
All in all, this place reminded me
of what Our Disco used to be like
before it vanished, and I would definitely recommend it if there is ever
a similar line-up. Speaking of Our
Disco, the line-up at Fabric on 3rd
and 4th November is mind-blowingly amazing. Soulwax’s Nite Versions live, 2ManyDJs, Vitalic live,
Uffie live, Our Disco DJs, Headman
and more will invade the club for
the entire weekend. I’ll be there,
and you should be too.
Uffiesaurus

Preview:
Radio Soulwax
Weekender
This weekend, the legendary 2ManyDJs land on Fabric in both their
DJ guise and as the live act Soulwax performing their album Nite
Versions. They will be joined by a
host of the most exciting electro
acts around at the moment, including Vitalic (live), Headman, Uffie
(live), MUSTAPHA 3000 and many
others. Soulwax will be headlining on Friday and Saturday, so you
have no excuse for missing it!

H

ello once again my
fellow nocturnal beings. Still no Neighbours omnibus, but
the first anniversary special of Deal Or No Deal
has sated my desire for trashy
television (at least I’m told that
the programme’s trashy, but Noel
Edmonds could hardly be much
more classy).
So, Halloween has come and
gone (actually, at the time of writing, it has yet to happen, so disregard all of what follows) and
knees were probably up all round.
This year I didn’t buy a pumpkin. since it’s such a colossal
waste of money and I’m no fool.
In hindsight however, I do regret
not bowing under the barrage of
spooky marketing that has beset
the nation, since a hollowed out
pumpkin would have been the
perfect housing for my poor, neglected strobe light (as well as a
perfect weapon against epileptic
trick-or-treaters).
To continue on from the theme
of last week, briefly, I will warn you
that a few strobe lights bought off
eBay and a handful of glow-sticks
do not a perfect club-night make.
For a start, your house is probably not a club and, as such, if you
do not invite people they simply
will not come. In fact, if you do decide to go down the treacherous
path into the world of home-clubbing, without a bucketload of hallucinogenic drugs you are likely
to notice that you’re actually just
a loner sat in your living room
pissing off the neighbours. Really, you’d just be better off swallowing your pride and switching
Neighbours back on.
As for the page this week, you’ll
see that we have two reviews and
a teensy little preview to entertain you for as long as it takes for
you to read them. Hopefully the
reviews prove to be as enlightening and fascinating to you as they
are to me.
Finally, a recommendation for
this weekend. On Sunday 5th get
your callipygian behinds over to
the union for another Alternative Music Society run Kids Will
Be Skeletons gig-night, with lots
of tasty (and French) bands employing myriad styles to tantalise
and delight your senses. I hope to
see all of you there!
Until next week, enjoy all your
nights out and maybe even send
us a review or two.

16

Friday 3 November 2006

felix

ARTS

arts.felix@imperial.ac.uk

Artist, inventor, Renaissance man
Can yet another da Vinci exhibition really bring us any closer to understanding the man behind the genius?
Leonardo da Vinci: Experience,
Experiment and Design
Victoria and Albert Musuem
Until January 7th 2007
£5 Students
Leonardo da Vinci: painter, sculptor, architect, engineer, inventor,
and the iconic Renaissance man.
A fascinating exhibition currently
showing at the Victoria & Albert
Museum, “Leonardo da Vinci:
Experience, Experiment and Design”, explores the artistic roots of
da Vinci’s creativity. It also claims
to explain how he managed to be
so inventive. In short, it argues
that he used drawing as a form of
brainstorming.
The exhibition brings together
more than sixty of Leonardo’s finest drawings, manuscripts, and
notebooks from a variety of collections. These documents are ample
testament to the amazing breadth
of his interests. At the same time,
they clearly illustrate the important
links he made between diverse topics that once seemed unconnected.
For Leonardo, the world, and
everything in it, was governed by
laws of nature. He believed that it
was possible to work out the causes
of natural phenomena by observing them. Once understood, such
causes could be applied by analogy
to other parts of creation. Nowhere

was this better demonstrated than
in his studies of the human body.
The body was the world in microcosm: smaller in scale, yet equivalent in complexity, and operating
under the same natural laws. So,
Leonardo was able to liken the
twisted channel of an aged blood
vessel to the tortuous course of a
silted riverbed. He could even deduce the vortex flow of blood in the
heart from observing the turbulent
motion of water.
Many other aspects of the great
man’s work are represented in this
exhibition, such as explorations of
three-dimensional geometry, nature in motion, military engineering, architectural visions, and various devices of entertainment. As
well as seeing them in Leonardo’s
own hand, you can see them come
to life as animated versions projected onto the walls, high above the
exhibits themselves.
Unfortunately, true 3D representations of Leonardo’s ingenious
designs are somewhat lacking. The
reconstructions that have been
made available are few in number
and are displayed unsympathetically at some distance from the main
exhibition. In contrast, a previous
Science Museum exhibition called
The Art of Innovation successfully
made a feature of specially created
models.

Horses in action, studies of expression horses, lion and man, an architectural groundplan. c.1505
Anything to do with da Vinci always attracts plenty of visitors. So,
viewing all the exhibits in the relatively cramped display gallery was
a slow and frustrating experience.
Luckily, I took advantage of the
excellent audio guide narrated by
the show’s curator, Martin Kemp,

Professor of the History of Art at
Oxford. This certainly enhanced
my appreciation and kept my impatience in check.
In the end, though, I felt that
£5 for entry plus £3 for the audio
guide was on the steep side for
this intriguing but limited exhibi-

tion. If you are interested, I would
certainly encourage you to go, but
do spend some time to look around
the V&A’s extensive galleries. You
can do this for free and it will make
whatever you fork out seem all the
more reasonable.
Edward Wawrzynczak

The morality of arms dealing
Major Barbara
Orange Tree Theatre
Until December 9th
£10 Students
George Bernard Shaw is 150 this
year. You’d think that the NT would
be marking the occasion, that
there’d be celebratory adaptations
of his works on the BBC and that
everyone would be dusting off their
copy of My Fair Lady.
No, the celebrations seem to be
confined to one theatre in Richmond, the Orange Tree. But don’t
let that put you off; their new production of Shaw’s Major Barbara is
a fittingly explosive tribute to this
underrated playwright.
The play revolves around the
struggle of morals between Andrew Undershaft (Robert Austin),
an arms manufacturer, and his estranged daughter Barbara, a Salvation Army Major.
To save her father’s soul, Barbara
persuades him to visit her barracks,
but in return she agrees to visit his
arms factory and listen to his side.
Throughout the first two acts, Octavia Walter’s Barbara is deliciously evangelical, preserving her holier-than-though expressions with
annoying precision. But when her
father’s money becomes the only
way of saving the barracks, Barbara’s moral high-ground starts to
look uneven.
Only her images of a hellish factory can keep her idealism alive,
but she soon discovers how well her
father’s workers live.
Undershaft’s key speech, pleading
that poverty is the greatest crime, is
immensely persuasive, and Austin’s
performance is amplified by the intense atmosphere of the theatre in

ROBERT DAY

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Robert Austin stars as Andrew
Undershaft in Major Barbara
the round. But Barbara’s ultimate
decision would shake any idealist to
the core, exposing the uncomfortable humanity inside us all. I defy
you to sit through this play and not
question your own morality.
Emily Lines

random New-Yorkers in the street.
They are not amused.
The plot develops with hilarious
consequences with Borat bizzarely
obsessing over marrying Pamela
Anderson (even seeing that video
dissuades him only momentarily).
This results in our protagonist attempting to wed the Baywatch icon
in traditional Kazakh-style when
he attends her book signing. I do
though, fully understand her refusal. After all, he does try to put a
marriage sack, embroidered with
their names, over her head and
make off with the actress.
The denouement is that our two
heroes return to Kazakhstan after
learning many lessons, not least
about how uptight and socially inept some Americans are (at least
in this production). Borat even parades a new spouse around the village after his old wife not-so-sadly
passes away – high five! We all tried
to applaud at the film’s finale but
continuous laughter had sapped
our energy and we could only manage a breathless, “Nice!”
Although Borat is the acme of
comedy (no subtlety or pretensions
here folks), it was in fact surpassed
easily in humour by the post-showing press conference, where Borat
appeared in person. After waiting
around in the resplendent Dorchester Hotel, with many irate journalists who hailed from all around
Europe, for what seemed like one
whole hour (reporters have no patience), the film’s star entered with
Azamat, amid much joyful cheek
kissing and hand waving.
Borat then proceeded to refer to
the dulcet-toned Charlotte Church
as a ‘Welsh prostitute’. He refused
to respond to questions from fe-

Sacha Baron Cohen starring in Borat: Cultural Learnings of America
for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan
male reporters; these had to be
relayed through a male ‘interpreter.’ He did address one young lady
as she arose to ask her question.
However, it was only to say, “Nice!
How much? You stay behind after!”
When quizzed by the sole (and unlucky) Israeli journo attendee, he
replied in terrified tones, “Keep
your claws where I can see them!”
And later, addressing the same gen-

tleman, amid our riotous guffaws,
stated, “I will crush you!” Although
the questions were thoroughly prescreened, they did assure raucous
humour during Borat’s speech.
I did not take up the generous offer to stay with him in his Kazakh
home with free use of his sister and
much “dog-shooting.” I will, however, go to see this movie again and
again and so should you.

A young white rather than a ripened red

Russell Crowe immediately phones his agent upon realising he’s stepped onto the set of Jurassic Park 4
Alex Casey
Ridley and Russell reunited! Great!
Historical epics never were the
same after Gladiator. But what’s
this? No swords, no grandiose battles and not a Roman in sight. Instead we get a ‘light comedy’ that
is as great a change of direction for
both of these Hollywood A-listers
as any of us could imagine. And do
they mess it up? Of course not. But
it won’t make your top 10 either.
A Good Year isn’t a film for delivering surprises. The story focuses
on Crowe’s character, Max, a London investment banker who inher-

its from his uncle a French chateau
and vineyard in Provence where
he used to holiday as a child. As
he tries to offload it onto the first
buyer, he reconnects with the countryside and when his professional
career back in London goes under
investigation, the fate of his inheritance becomes uncertain. Chuck in
the couple of mandatory foils into
his plan to sell, namely a feisty waitress, Fanny, who captures his heart
and the arrival of a girl who claims
to be the illegitimate daughter of
Max’s uncle, and the thin storyline
is in place. Twists and turns at every corner? Not unless your sense

of foresight is seriously dented.
For fans of Russell Crowe, this
film might confuse. It doesn’t rely
on his fantastic acting ability (as did
A Beautiful Mind) or his fervent
masculinity (that which propelled
Gladiator and Cinderella Man)
and so seems more like an excuse
to hang out with old mate Ridley
again. Scott himself has also departed from his usual line of work;
a strong statement considering his
diverse filmography to date. This
doesn’t have the drama of Blade
Runner, horror of Alien, grandeur
of Gladiator or hand-claspingdesert-driving girl power of Thelma

and Louise. Despite this, both turn
in fine work with Scott presenting
Provence as paradise with some
incredible lighting and Crowe suitably convincing the audience he’s
not the same man who throws
phones at hotel receptionists.
The supporting cast also shine
with Marion Cotillard as the delicious French sex bomb who catches Crowe’s eye and Abbie Cornish
as the alleged heir whose American
idealism provides a strong contrast
to Crowe’s cynicism. The ensemble work well together, interacting
as smoothly with each other as they
do with such gorgeous scenery.
The constant references to wine
throughout bring to mind the recent hit Sideways but the mediocre
story here will not garner the same
praise of that film. The comedy
is lighter, the tale forgettable and
despite the underlying message of
“life is meant to be savoured”, the
excitement of the Max’s financial
killing at the start is never matched
by the scenes in France. The idea
here was never to make an entry
into film history however. Its place
is more suited to a quiet Sunday afternoon, sitting, sans hangover, in
a comfy armchair, savouring each
drop like a fine wine. This may not
gain classic status, but A Good Year
does provide a pleasant two hours.

Battle against the franchise
Technology pushes forward year on year, but is real game design a thing of the past?
DeadPixel

Michael Cook
Games Editor

G

reetings, welcome
and hello to what
can only be adequately described as
“Felix Games: Beta
Version”. This week, we relaunch
a section not seen for some time
in these hallowed pages. The last
time Felix Games graced this paper, a Playstation 2 would set you
back £170, CounterStrike 1.5 was
enjoying 30,000 servers worldwide and Wii games were childish things that teenage boys did
in the Gents. Life was simple.
How times change. CounterStrike has now seen several
fully-published releases, you can
pick up a PS2 for a fraction of the
cost and size of days gone by, and
gaming is almost – almost, mind
you – cool.
Not only that, but everyone is
gaming now. And as the prize
pot grows bigger, companies are
looking to get as many people as
possible on their side – girl gamers, grrl gamers, young gamers,
old gamers, casual gamers, hardcore gamers, and – yes - those
people that think that Rainbow
Six is engaging and fun. If you’ve
got a wallet, then they’ve got a
game for you.
But as we discuss this week,
it’s not just your money that the
Industry needs. As the markets
grow wider and the demands
more complex, it’s hard to keep
innovative without fresh ideas
and sharp new minds flowing in.
We take a look at Neverwinter
Nights 2 and Microsoft’s XNA
and ask whether bedroom coding
is a thing of the past.
And hey, the industry needs
journalists, too (or so we like to
think, at least)! Without writers,
this section can’t survive, so if
you’ve got the experience and the
writing know-how, Felix Games
wants to hear from you – the
email address is at the bottom of
this column.
Aside from our themed weekly
features, we’ll also be taking a
look back at milestones and undiscovered gems from platforms
past in our Retro column. And
we’ll also be looking to the future
in Where Next, which focuses on
the technologies, games and theory behind tomorrow’s industry.
Over the coming weeks and
more, the layout of Felix Games
is likely to change many times.
But we can’t do it at all without
you!
So if you’ve got a comment on
the section, or would like to be a
part of our writing team, please
get in touch. The details are below. Enjoy.
Michael Cook
Games Editor
games.felix@imperial.ac.uk

Game development is big business,
a very big business. With development studios comprising hundreds
of developers, and budgets reaching far into the tens of millions of
pounds, we’ve come a long way
since lone programmers tinkered
with machine code in their basements … or have we?
Of course, today’s blockbuster
games provide audio and visual
experiences on a whole different
scale to games of the past. How can
a pixelated two-frame character
animation possibly compare with
3-D models containing millions of
polygons and advanced pixel-shader technology? Given the option,
it’s obvious which someone would
choose.
These amazing visuals come at
a high price, however. Back in the
world of Pong and Pacman, development times were measured in
weeks or months. Today, they are
measured in years. The time, effort,
and money needed to create the
graphics players have come to expect from modern games are vast.
But in terms of the “fun” they add to
a game … is it all really worth it?
The human mind is very good
at ignoring unnecessary details.
Amazing visual effects do a good job
of creating that “wow” factor when
a gamer looks at the back of the box
in their high-street shop. But in the
long run, all these next-generation
graphics serve to do is present the
player with the gameplay experience in as pleasant a way as possible. Just like a movie with great
effects is poor if it’s backed up by a
weak plot, a game with weak gameplay won’t hold the attention of the

Unreal Tournament 07’s weapons boast more pixels than entire levels did in the original. Is it more fun?
player, no matter how many pretty
explosions it has.
For today’s smaller developers,
the situation can look pretty bleak.
Without the vast resources available to the big studios, they will often
fall flat on their face while trying to
match the visual quality of the latest
blockbuster. The big development
companies would have you believe
it’s impossible to make a hit game
without a team of hundreds and
millions of pounds at your disposal
… and they may well be correct.
Does this mean there isn’t a place
for the small independent developer in a market full of movie licenses
and 2006/7/8 sports managers? Not
necessarily. Things are starting to
change in how games reach their

audience. Traditionally, a developer
would produce a game, and then
start it down the long and treacherous journey of publishers, distributors, and resellers. If all goes well,
the game will end up on a shelf in
a high street shop, where it’s critically compared by unforgiving customers against the rest of the market based on how much “wow” they
can squeeze on the back of a 7” by
10” box – a pretty harsh environment for a small and unestablished
developer.
But with the advent of online
distribution, games can be delivered directly to customers who are
able to make much more informed
choices. This new market pits small
developers with new ideas on a lev-

el playing field against the big companies. Over the next few years, it’s
possible that this new delivery system could lead to a divide in game
development. There will always be
money to be made in pumping out
sequel upon sequel of a tried and
testing concept by companies who
really can’t afford to take risks. This
could leave the market’s need for
innovative and original games to
be met by the smaller companies
who perhaps don’t have as much to
lose.
For now at least there is a glimmer of hope for the gamers who’ve
become disillusioned by the unanswered call for new and unique
games - small developers with big
ideas have just found a new voice.

A gamer’s favourite bedroom pastime
Neverwinter Nights veteran Bryn Davies talks about mods, modules and fame
Michael Cook
When Neverwinter Nights was released back in 2002, it had a profound impact both on the average
multiplayer gamer, as well as the
aspiring coder. The Aurora toolset
enabled both teams and individuals
to create their own worlds, sharing work between a strong online
community.
With the release of Neverwinter
Nights 2 this week, it’s possible that
there’s another revolution on the
horizon. Felix Games talks to Bryn
Davies, the creator of the module
True Colors of a Hero, about how
the tools and the people have enabled him to create a world.
Is TCOAH the first modification
you’ve ever made for a game?
Far from it, though its definitely the
largest project I’ve ever undertaken. I started modding back when the
Quake II editor was released. From
there I moved on to Unreal, then
through the series all the way up to
Unreal Tournament 2004. Mainly I
just coded weapons, skinned characters and designed levels. I’m
no 3d artist (I could never make
anything that didn’t just look like a

bundle of cubes) so modelling was
out of the question. NWN1 was odd
actually. I left it a while and saw it
with the first expansion in a cheap
bundle. That’s where it all started.
What do you find helpful from using Neverwinter Nights?
The ease at which you can knock
together a module. Most modules
now use such sophisticated scripting and custom content, but to be
honest it’s not strictly needed.
If you’re already able to create a
working adventure, with unlimited
scope for its length and the many
pathways to its end without even
touching a single string of code,
then all you’re left with is the level
design and the story (from which

your gameplay should follow).
The community is fantastic. 4
years after its initial release you’re
still getting people releasing free
content for it. For mod developers,
particularly who aren’t able or confident in producing custom content
for their modules, its fantastic.
Do you think there’s still the ‘bedroom coding’ ethic?
In some ways the bedroom coding
ethic is more prevalent than ever.
The games industry has entered a
very strange time. The graphics on
games now are just stunning. The
detail on objects and characters
just blows you away. But gameplay
hasn’t moved on that much. We’re
stuck in the same formulas.

Bryn Davies’ customisations to NWN include an emote system

However, I don’t think the solution is to break out of the defined
game genres with every title. I just
think that the elements of gameplay, which have become pretty
rigid within most genres, should be
expanded.
I want to be interested by a game
from the word go, and I want to easily be able to identify why I should
buy it over another.
There’s no use comparing two FPS
titles when its just going to be a
choice between graphics styling
and “storyline”.
This is where bedroom developers can and indeed have aided the
professionals. You can take a look
at any PC title that’s had a big net
community follow it and I’ll guarantee you that some of those modders have been snapped up by the
initial games developers. In the
case of NWN1, just look at DLA.
Many of their members left to work
for Bioware. It’s always possible,
you’ve just gotta work hard to get
recognition.
For more information about
TCOAH point your web browser
to: http://snipurl.com/10vpd

Friday 3 November 2006

felix

GAMES

games.felix@imperial.ac.uk

Retro review - 42 All-Time Classics

Out now

You call that retro? Jesse Garman provides some recommended background gaming
Not many people would deliberately buy an all-in-one games compilation for the Nintendo DS, so that’s
why we’ve done it for you.
Nintendo’s 42 All-Time Classics is
a collection of famous and not-sofamous games from Chess to Old
Maid, Chinese Checkers to Koi Koi,
and Darts to Soda Shake, where
players take it in turns to shake a
virtual soda bottle and the one shaking it when the top flies off, loses.
It’s important to point out at this
stage that 42 All-time Classics is a
strictly multiplayer affair. The single-player portion is so lifeless and
staid that to endeavour your way
through will simply force you to
play games you wouldn’t normally
have tried and maybe find some
hidden gems, as well as unlocking new games for your choices
in multiplayer. The main single
player game, Stamp, runs through
each game one-by-one giving three
stamps for a top performance and
one for a poor performance. Each
game requires three stamps to
continue and, handily, if you happen to get more than three on a
particular game, then they do carry
over. It shows that even if you come
last that you get a stamp that Nin-

19

tendo don’t want you to linger on a
game you don’t like for too long, but
that’s part of the problem. I despise
“Cheat” and to be forced to play it
with the computer for 3 games in
a row is my idea of hell. The option
to skip a particular game would’ve
been nice, perhaps one skip per level could’ve been allowed but it was

The Hearts card game - playable

not to be.
The other single-player game,
called “Mission”, is a far more flexible idea, which has an element of
Crazy Taxi’s mini-games about it.
Each game is given a goal, which
can be forgivingly easy or horrifically hard, for example, Hearts
requires you to Shoot The Moon,
whereas Dots & Boxes requires
you to capture all boxes, a fiendish
task in comparison. This mode is
much more welcoming but still has
the main flaw that it is intolerably
dull. You’d be better off honing your
poker skills in real life. Your reward
for completing these tasks is a new
icon, which you can use to represent yourself over a network. This
brings me on to the multiplayer…
The multiplayer is where the
game shines and for this I give it
8/10. The interface is easily navigable and there is something for
every mood from hyperactivity
(such as Spit) to relaxed sedation
(Checkers). Up to eight friends can
play on one cartridge with little lag
and means that although many variations are more fun when played
with the actual board or playing
cards, you’d be hard-pressed to find
them all together in such an acces-

An old maid - not playable
sible package, assuming you have
at least one other friend with a DS.
The other feature is internet-connectivity. If you have a compatible
wireless router in your house (any
AOSS works), you can connect and
find other games that are being
played on the Internet with absolutely no extra components or software. Unfortunately, I was unable
to test this as ours was not compatible but I would primarily use this
game to play friends I could see and
hear, the Internet play would most
likely be of side interest.

Neverwinter Nights finally returns
to game shelves this week with it’s
sequel, looking to bring the technologies firmly up to date, providing
the average player with an engaging single-player experience as well
as opening up the toolset for more
natural, customisable module creation. NWN2 is almost certain to be
one of Christmas’ biggest releases
for the PC.
And speaking of dependable franchises, this week also sees the return of Sam Fisher to PC and in limited edition form on the Xbox 360.
Splinter Cell: Double Agent is the
fourth in the stealthy franchise, and
the series certainly seems to have
stopped dragging its heels after
a pretty samey third incarnation.
Double Agent is darker, slicker and
seems more streamlined than it’s
previous outings. An interesting
change of pace for Tom Clancy’s
finest.

Splinter Cell 4 - green is still in

Choo! Choo! Choo! Full steam ahead!
Is Valve’s Steam platform the future of digital distribution? Should we be concerned?

Half-Life 2’s G-Man. A metaphor for corporate heartlessness, or
merely a warning to wearers of bad ties? “Wake up, Mr Freeman.”
Victor Faion
Steam is an online games distribution network developed by Valve,
makers of the Half-Life series. Before Steam was created, Valve relied on WON (World Opponent Network) to run its multiplayer games
and distribute patches. In 2001
Valve acquired WON and began
building Steam. The first version of
Steam was available for download
in 2002 during the beta test of Counter- Strike 1.4. With the release of
Counter-Strike 1.5 users of Steam
and WON could play together on

the same servers. Once enough
testing was done, Valve shut down
the last WON servers in 2004 and
Steam took over.
When Valve announced that they
would distribute their sequel, HalfLife 2, through Steam, many were
doubtful that it could work because
of the amount of bandwidth needed
to send an entire game over the Internet. However Valve had created
a strong network which used peerto-peer technology and the online
release of Half-Life 2 was mostly
successful. This was the beginning
of online games distribution.

Independent developers Introversion were able to reach millions of
gamers around the world by selling
their games Darwinia and more recently Defcon through Steam. This
has allowed the bedroom coders to
save money on distribution and to
sell their games at a lower price by
cutting out the middle man. Online
distribution provides a more level
playing field for developers and allows even small studios to become
successful.
Big game publishers are also using Steam. Recently, 2K Games and
Activision have signed contracts
with Valve to distribute their games
through Steam. This makes the
Civilization and Call of Duty series
available on Steam. Other publishers are likely to follow and Steam’s
control of the games distribution
market will increase.
Steam has begun influencing
game design as well. Valve have
begun releasing small episodes of
games such as their own Half-Life
2 Episodes and the SiN Episodes by
Ritual. The episode system allows
you to buy a part of the game for
less money than the whole game
and then if you enjoy it, you can buy
the next part. This will probably
happen more often in the future as
games companies find it increasingly harder to come up with new
ideas for games.
As Steam continues to grow security becomes an issue. When HalfLife 2 was released on Steam there
were several hacks which could cir-

cumvent Steam and allow users to
download the games for free. Since
then Valve has rewritten Steam’s
authentication system and claims
that users cannot play a game on
Steam if they did not legitimately
buy it. However the authentication
servers go down sometimes. Another problem faced by Steam is users who steal account information.
Valve needs to make Steam more
secure if it wants to attract more
publishers to use it.
Currently Steam only accepts
credit cards to purchase games
and this limits who can buy games.
However they are working on allowing PayPal and wire transfer
as alternate methods of payment.
This introduces the problem of age
verification.
Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo
are creating similar distribution
systems for their PS3, Xbox 360
and Wii consoles respectively. Sony
has launched the Electronic Distribution Initiative to offer games
on the PS3. Microsoft is expanding its Xbox Live services to offer
more content. Nintendo is creating
the Wii Compact Software line of
games which can be downloaded
through the Wii. Valve is working
on the third version of its Steam client which will manage connections
better and feature an improved
Friends chat client.
Clearly online distribution is the
future of the games industry and
traditional retailers will have to
adapt.

“Run, you pigeons! It’s Robert Frost!”

Or maybe you’re feeling a bit
different this week? Desperate
Housewives gets a much-needed
gaming conversion. Felix Games
only has this advice to offer you
– it’s been released near a holiday
involving fires for a reason.
Things have been quiet on the
Grand Theft Auto front for most
gamers, but PSP owners can pick
up a second dose of vehicular thievery this week with the release of
Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories. If you weren’t enthused by the
previous PSP title, Liberty City Stories, then don’t expect to be blown
away here, but the series has been
updated with features like empire
building. Most gamers may just
wish to wait for the next-gen GTA.

ETP: Sports - being lazy is out
If you’re feeling sporty, and
wouldn’t mind burning off a few
calories, then Eyetoy Play: Sports
comes out this week too. With each
edition of the Play series, SCE London learn more about their ingenious toy. If you can’t wait for the Wii
to get some crazy peripheral action,
Sports is worth a look. If you’re feeling like something less strenuous,
however, then you might prefer to
take a look at FIFA Manager 07.
Even with the controversy surrounding the breaking up of the
Champ Man franchise, you may
find that FIFA is the weaker of the
two.
Next week: Call of Duty 3, Medieval 2: Total War and Pro Evo 6.

– Manny, Grim Fandango

at the union

nov 3rd - 16th

Wednesday 8th & 15th

Thursday 9th

8th November - Bar Games & Beer
15th November - RAG Miss World
Every Wednesday At The Union!

A brief history of Chanel
Coco Chanel's founding of a boundary-breaking fashion brand by Sarah Skeete

The iconic Coco Chanel
Chanel wasn't just a fashion designer; she was a style revolutionary of her time. Chanel challenged
the traditional fashions of the day,
rejecting the restrictive impractical
styles for practical but elegant clothing. Her innovations became basics
in the wardrobes of generations of
women: jersey suits and dresses,
the chemise, pleated skirts, the
cardigan suit, the blazer, the little
black dress, the sling pump, strapless dresses, the trench coat. Much
like Comme De Garcons is to Rei
Kawakubo, Chanel was an expression of Coco’s personal style; a mix
of the vocabulary of both male and
female clothes.
Coco was associated with the
most creative artists of the day:
Diaghilev, Picasso, Stravinsky and
Cocteau. She liked to express herself through the fashion she created
and once said, “Fashion is not something that exists in dresses only.
Fashion is in the sky, in the street,
fashion has to do with ideas, the
way we live, what is happening.”
Of other designers, Chanel said,
“Fashion has become a joke. The
designers have forgotten that there
are women inside the dresses.”
Chanel believed that women should
dress simply and comfortable, she
made only clothes that she herself
would wear. In a way Chanel was
a feminist in the clothes she de-

"Fashion has
become a joke.
The designers
have forgotten
that there are
women inside
the dresses."
– Coco Chanel
signed, built to work with women
rather than restrict them.
The name Coco was adopted by
Chanel when, after a brief stint as
a seamstress, she started working
as a cabaret singer at La Rotonde.
At the Café La Rotonde she met
Etienne Balsan, a millionaire cavalry officer and textile heir, who financed her move to Paris. Through
Balsan, Coco was introduced to
high society where she acquired
the habits and tastes of the wealthy.
She became a hat designer in 1908,
providing an alternative to the ostrich boa hats women in high society wore, which she herself found
distasteful. Using the resources
of Balsan and another patron, she

21

opened her first millinery shop in
Deuville 1912. Through her contacts with high society, her shop
soon became a success.
From hats, Chanel added clothes
to the collection, with her romantic
affairs with the artist Paul Iribe,
the Duke of Westminster, Grand
Duke Dmitri of Russia, and British
sportsman Arthur Capel having a
considerable influence on her often
male-inspired fashions. Capel’s lavish gifts of jewels served as the keystones of Coco's astonishing collection of costume jewellery. Costume
jewellery had previously been unfashionable, but Coco popularised
it, using fake jewels in lavish ropes
of imitation pearls to enhance her
simple understated clothes. It was
also Capel’s blazer, lent to Coco on
a chilly day at the polo grounds, that
inspired her famous box jacket.
Chanel was arguably the most
innovative designer of her time.
She was first designer to use wool
jersey in women’s wear, using it to
make soft clingy dresses. Wool jersey had previously been used solely
for men’s underwear. Her original
use of jersey fabric attracted the attention of influential wealthy women, because it freed them from the
prevalent corseted style of dresses.
Her nonconformist designs revolutionized the textile industry. Her
designs were also credited with the
development of American mass
production. Her designs were simple and used standard fabrics, making them easy to copy. Thousands
of knock-offs of her designs were
made, sometimes costing more
than an original Chanel.
In contrast with most designers
Chanel was not perturbed by this,
saying, “I want my dresses to go
out on the street.” Coco, controversially, popularised women's trousers with her design of bell-bottom
trousers, which she had designed to
enable her to climb more easily in
and out of gondolas in Venice. She
also, if accidentally, kicked off the

COOL
Pop Magazine
Sure the first 20 pages
are adverts, but at least
the adverts are pretty. A
younger more fashion
focused version of i-D.

Marie Antoinette
Sure it doesn't have much
of a plot, and has Kirsten
Dunst's annoying face in
it. But the costumes are
beautiful.
Holy Moly
Popbitch's more accurate
cousin. To be fair, I don't
really care if the shocking celebrity exploits
are made up, as long as
they're entertaining.

feminist trend of bobbed hair when
after singeing her hair she decided
to cut it all off. Tanning was another
accidental trend started by Chanel,
after she accidentally became sunburned during a cruise to Cannes.
Chanel loved to quote the poet
Paul Valery, saying, “a badly perfumed woman has no future.” In
1922 Chanel introduced the fragrance that insured her fame,
Chanel No. 5, named after Coco’s
lucky number. The first to be sold
worldwide, it stood out with its Art
Deco bottle and minimalist packaging. It contrasted with the other
flamboyant perfume bottles of the
time, in the same way that her relaxed fashions were in sharp contrast to the corset fashions popular
in the previous decades. Chanel
No. 5 remains an indelible symbol
of Chanel and is still popular today.

As Chanel's Senior VP of Marketing
and Sales Jean Zimmerman says,
“The success of No5 is due to the
fragrance itself and the very creative advertising behind it."
In 1923 Chanel launched the signature Chanel suit; a knee-length
skirt and trim, boxy jacket, traditionally made of woven wool with
black trim and gold buttons and
worn with large costume-pearl
necklaces. Chanel retired in 1938
but returned in 1954 to introduce a
new suit design; a collarless, braidtrimmed cardigan jacket with a
graceful skirt. At first this was not
very popular with Europeans, especially the press, perhaps as a result
of the tarnishing of her reputation
during the war. During her retirement she had an affair with a Nazi
officer, diminishing her popularity.
She moved to Switzerland, returning to reopen her Paris shop only to
boost lagging perfume sales. However unpopular at first in Europe,
her new suit was a massive success
in America, and worn by the likes of
Jackie Kennedy. By the 1960s much
of what Coco was doing was refining
the classic Chanel look. However,
despite now being part of the fashion establishment she once hated,
she still liked to rebel against established trends, creating boyish flapper creations to contrast with the
Belle Époque millinery fashionable
at that time. She also worked for
various Hollywood studios, dressing the likes of Audrey Hepburn,
Liz Taylor and Anne Baxter.
By the time of Chanel’s death, her
fashion empire made over $160m a
year and counted among its clients
Princess Grace, Queen Fabiola,
Marlene Dietrich and Ingrid Bergman. As a Time article published
on January 25th, 1972, a week after
her death said: "Just her name was
enough to define a pair of shoes, a
hat, a pocketbook, a suit, perfume,
jewellery—an entire look. It conveyed prestige, quality, impeccable taste and unmistakable style.
By her death last week at 87, the
French couturière had long since
established herself as the 20th century's single most important arbiter
of fashion."

<Red>
Save the world with rampant consumerism. Using
a <Red> credit card
doesn't really cut down
to the real issues causing poverty. What it does
do is make Bono look
unbearably smug.

Peaches Geldof
Has yet to come to the
crushing realisation that
she an invisible speck in
the universe and no-one
cares that she DJs. Anyone who has ears can DJ.
Surely she's overdue for a
visit to the Priory.

Madonna
Went on various talk
shows to counter media
accusations and promoted her new book, and
also left the baby with a
nanny the first night back
in England. This makes it
seem less like she wants
to publicise Malawi's
difficulties, and more like
she's an attention-seeking
media-whore.

Peter Dominiczak reports on the sights and delights of Vilnius, capital of Lithuania. Pictured above: Gedimino Street leading to the cathedral and Gediminas Tower
Peter Dominiczak

One of the beautiful views across a sprawling Vilnius

The absinthe sits on the alcoholsputtered bar, flaming menacingly,
acrid scent clawing at the backs
of our mouths. Jim Morrison sits
to my right, the tassels from his
maroon poncho coiled on the bar,
his eyes dull from too much wheat
beer. On the left is the huge, bulk of
a man called Gorgon, bearded with
flowing, tangled hair, swaying on the
bar stool, mumbling to himself in an
odd Lithuanian-English hybrid. We
are all flanked on both sides by unknown beauties, like the exquisite
seraphs in a Rubens masterpiece.
We wonder to ourselves where they
possibly could have come from,
how they are genetically possible,
how we can get to know them? Suddenly The Gorgon lets out a wail
not dissimilar to that made popular
by Chewbacca in Star Wars, downs
a still flaming absinthe, wails once
more and then collapses in a heap
on the floor, soundless now.
‘Is he ok?’ I ask Jim Morrison.
Jim turns his head with all the
nonchalance of a 1960s West-Coast
rock star. ‘Gorgon,’ he hisses, ‘Gorgon!’ Nothing. Jim turns back to
me and in his affected American
accent, peppered with Baltic vowels and the guttural sounds of his
true home nation, he says simply:
‘Don’t worry, man. He does this
sometimes.’ We turn back to our
absinthes, forgetting The Gorgon,
prostrate on the mucky floor, probably wailing in his drunken dreams.

The above is no hallucination. It
only took six days in Vilnius for an
unconscious giant to become an
axiomatic part of our evenings out,
but more of that later.
Getting to Vilnius is an event best
left to lovers of fear. It begins in the
arse-end of Gatwick airport, the end
reserved for drug-smuggler’s cavity searchers and the huge vaults
containing those pointless chewable toothbrushes which make you
long for times past when miserable
halitosis was perfectly acceptable.
It takes eight hours to get there
and you need a Sherpa to guide you
on the last ascent through beige,
piss-smelling corridors covered in
the detritus of discarded chewable
toothbrushes. Gatwick does not
like Lithuanians. When the gate is
finally reached, when you lumber
over to the stained window to take
one last look at grey old England,
the metal tube about to take you
miles into the air at speed comes
into view. At this moment you feel
an almost brotherly understanding
with those about to go over the top
in Flanders’s Fields back in 1917.
FlyLal planes look similar to something Neil Buchanan might have
whipped up in fifteen minutes on
Art Attack. In fact, I think I would
have had more confidence if that
Scouse monstrosity had had a hand
in the aerospace engineering of
FlyLal’s fleet. The plane is cracked
and wizened, garish colours painted
over holes and indents, looking all
the while like some seaside funfair

attraction, inspiring no confidence
in its ability to move, let alone fly.
The interior (brave enough to venture inside, you see) rests in an
epoch where safety was of concern
to no-one, when jutting metal was
a design feature and seats which
didn’t spontaneously collapse were
the feature on that Friday’s ‘Tomorrow’s World.’ Three hours of creaking, sputtering, high-decibel bangs
and warm beer, however, we land in
an airport more closely resembling
a farm than an E.U destination.
Welcome to Vilnius.
Armed with Lonely Planet guile
we already know the taxi driver’s
game. Famous for cheating the
foreigners, don’t accept anything
more than 20 Litas to the centre.
We are prepared for haggling, for
financial dancing akin to Rocky
and Apollo going at it in Rocky II.
Within two minutes our ‘know-how’
had precipitated a fight between a
group of colossal taxi drivers and
our bags had been launched at us
at high velocity. Don’t listen to people from Lonely Planet. They are
the kind of folk that end up dismembered in a bin in Guatemala. Just
pay for things. With the exchange
rate in Lithuania, an estate to rival
Abramovich’s best only costs about
four quid anyway.
Now before I take you through the
baroque majesty of Old Vilnius, the
castles, courtyards and most individual of culinary ideals, allow me a
section reserved solely for bile and
spewed anger. When you arrive in

Friday 3 November 2006

felix

TRAVEL

23

felix@imperial.ac.uk

Lithuania, at 11pm, during a hefty
storm you don’t entirely expect the
booking you had so carefully made
on Lastminute.com (confirmed of
course, with an ‘enjoy your trip’ and
everything) to have the status of a
mythical creature.
‘Minute Lastas?’ shrugs the
blonde hotel secretary. ‘No, sorry.
I no know dis.’
And with that
she shrugs with
all the equanimity of someone in
London who can’t
tell you how to change from the Piccadilly line to the Bakerloo line; not
someone about to chuck you out
on your arse in deepest Lithuania,
bait for Russian gangsters or circus
troops looking for replacements for
their now outlawed dancing bears. It
is besides the point that after three
days of threats it was resolved and
we were upgraded to a new hotel
(three stars: get in!). In those three
days we were told that our only
option was to sleep on the floor of
some cupboard in the corner of the
hotel with no locks and only a rapist named Vlad for company. I spent
hours on the phone to some bored
idiot in Slough who was desperate
for a cigarette break and didn’t care
in the least if I ended up strung up
with no pants on. Lastminute.com
have made my list and will remain
there until the next time I can’t be
bothered looking anywhere else
and, victim of advertising that I am,
book with them yet again.
Vilnius has been annexed a great
deal. Every time some superpower
found themselves with little to do,
they annexed Vilnius for a Sunday
lark. As a result, it is a truly European cultural blend, and all the better for it. The Old Town is one of the
biggest in Europe and exists as one
of the finest examples of Baroque
architecture one can see. It was
however, built over a few centuries
so amongst the Baroque rests the
austere splendour of the Renaissance and the intricate madness
that those crazed Gothic architects
dreamt up. In the 3.6 square kilometres of the Old Town, 46 Churches litter the skyline: there are the gaudy
crowns atop Orthodox Churches,

the great white domes of Catholic
Churches and the more subtle yet
on inspection, equally magnificent
synagogues, all resting in what
now appears as harmony, but one
imagines the friction of old, electrifying the city to its core. For the
discerning Religious viewer the
two most necessary attractions
are St. Anne’s
Church – with a
façade of such
Gothic
pomp
that a sprightly
Napoleon, on his
way to freeze in Russia, wished to
carry it to Paris ‘in the palm of his
hand.’ Then there is the Church of
Saint’s Peter and Paul: a Baroque
interior which took decades to carve
out of pure white stone, so intricate
and delicate, taking the breath from
your lungs on entry, it exists as a
kind of architectural extreme sport,
vacating your lungs of air on entry,
not giving it back until you wander
back into the sunlight outside. Baroque parachuting, perhaps.
But the greatness of Vilnius is not
its landmarks; the castles, the Cathedral all have something to offer,
but the lustre of the place is gained
from a holistic view. Just wander. Curved streets with coloured,
detailed facades litter the place.
Courtyards
in
unexpected
places; climbing
ivy and grand
trees
framing
crumbling stone
buildings,
history
emanating from every
fissure.
Stroll
across a bridge with hundreds of
padlocks left by newly married
couples covering the railings; enter the esoteric world of the Uzupis
district, whose people (artists obviously) decided to declare independence from the rest of Vilnius. Read
their constitution, engraved in
metal, hung on the wall of an insignificant alley: ‘A cat has the right to
be a cat,’ and other quaint inanities.
The atmosphere of the place, unlike any other I have experienced,
is to be imbibed everywhere you go,
around every corner, at the foot of

FlyLal planes
look similar to
something from
Art Attack

every holy structure and in front of
every crazed market seller.
Do, however, avoid the boiled
pig’s ear. Vilnius has managed to
cultivate a drinking culture that
is beyond the grasp of dear old
Blighty. The idea of spending time
in a pub, drinking slowly whilst
eating an (often) excellent meal is
a welcome change from the unexplainable compulsion London creates of inhaling 8 pints in 2 hours,
inhaling 2 kebabs in 8 minutes and
stomping off to find a corner to fulfil
the duel purpose of vomit receptacle and bed for the night. The pubs
in Vilnius are a glory indeed. Vast
caves, dark halls, wooden and atmospheric, trees growing up from
the basement are all far superior to
a Wetherspoons, whose main ascetic feature is the crumpled hooker in
the corner. Food is served by Baltic beauties and is everything you
could want to accompany a 2-litre
jug of beer: Zeppelins are a deepfried potato oval, filled with cream,
meat, cheese and bacon, topped
with cream, meat cheese and bacon.
Fried bread sticks with a creamy,
cheese concoction make beer taste
like Athena’s breast milk (possibly)
and meat comes bloody and softer
than the clouds above. But there
are pitfalls: platters of ear, fried or
boiled, stumps which were once the
foot of a pink porker, sheep’s stomachs – which,
when bitten into,
occasionally
crack,
revealing putrid green
juices and black
stones of undigested food. One
must learn to
take the rough
with the smooth when eating in
Vilnius.
Vilnius is, apparently, the new
Prague, along with about 5 other
capitals in Eastern Europe. Largely
because of its size, Vilnius probably
does have the potential to become
a seething mass of tourism though,
so go now before the stampede of
shaven-headed English men arrive, holding aloft the stag, ‘la la
la-ing’ into the night and perpetuating the stereotype in yet another
innocent nation. In one pub, I saw
the first wave, standing in a circle,
pints clasped close to their Burberry shirts, looking around, tongues
out, searching for birds and fights.
The English thug is an unfortunate
creature. They should be cleansed,
by nail-gun if necessary. I’ll do it,
vigilante style, if legislation does not
arrive soon to rid us of this plague.
So, what of The Gorgon and Jim
Morrison? Well, Jim had somehow
managed to get to San Francisco
for a month and had come back
firmly believing he was in fact, The
Lizard King. Either nobody had
the heart to tell him he was not a
look-a-like, or they just blindly accepted him as a grim product of
Westernisation. The Gorgon was
in fact called Gorga (as if it makes
a difference) and was the most entertaining encounter of my young
life so far. A mass of uncontrollable
nonsense, he prowled the bar, swigging people’s drinks, caterwauling
all the while, and then returning to
explain the subtleties of Lithuanian
culture to me (in bellowed Lithuanian, of course), before going to
sleep on the floor. The point is that
in this haven of beauty and history,
there was a kind of hospitality like
no other, a welcoming, inclusive
atmosphere that begs to be experienced. Go there, and if you find your
own Gorgon, or maybe even the legend himself, embrace him, for you
will miss him when he’s gone.

Matthew Wallace
France, a country loved by some,
not so much by others. Its most
redeeming feature in any rock
climber’s eyes is the huge variety
and quantity of climbing it offers,
all within low-cost airline fares. It
was for this reason, despite some
people’s misgivings, that I bought
a plane ticket to Marseille and set
off with the Mountaineering Club
to the Verdon Gorge for this year’s
summer tour.
The Verdon is a river running
through the Alpes-des-Haute-Provence in South-Eastern France. It
has cut over thousands of years a
three hundred metre deep gorge,
creating seemingly endless limestone walls that provide some of
the world’s most spectacular multipitch sport climbing. To explain the
jargon, ‘sport’ is a type of climbing where you clip into small bolts
as you ascend which are already
drilled and cemented into the rock.
This allows safe, rapid climbs and
is used widely in Europe, but is rare
in the UK where a traditional ethos
dictates that all protection should
be carried with you. This is in the
form of various shaped bits of metal
called ‘gear’ which can be jammed
into cracks on the way up and removed afterwards so as not to damage the rock. Multi-pitch refers to
the length of the climb. When the
route is longer than your rope, you
stop, anchor yourself to a ledge and
bring up your climbing partner before setting off again.
We arrived eager to test our mul-

felix

ti-pitch skills (and nerves) only to
discover the necessary guidebook
was out of print! Luckily for us the
owner of the local climbing shop,
Sabine, was able to step in and act
as a human route guide. As far as
we could tell she has climbed pretty
much every route in the area, knew
everywhere off by heart, often even
better than the book itself. Needless
to say, due to the personalised route
descriptions, presents and bags of
sweets she gave us, more than one
of us fell for the eccentric old lady in
the climbing shop.
Something even Sabine could not
reassure us of was how to escape
the gorge in the event of things
not going to plan. The river valley
is only accessible at ground level
from the lake, about a ten mile hike
and swim from the climbs themselves! The only easy way to the
bottom of the climbs was from the
top of the gorge. To reach them you
have to abseil down, taking your
rope – the only escape – with you. If
you can’t climb out, it is a very long
walk along and up the gorge to safety. Add to this the risk of the dam
sluice gates being opened without
warning, made the bottom of the
gorge a fairly inhospitable place!
Curious to discover this for ourselves, we rented canoes and set off
up the river. A few miles upstream
the narrowing of the channel resulted in tempting white water. Obviously we had to test our rafting
skills, but predictably these weren’t
quite up to scratch and the canoe
was upside down, with Henry’s shirt
floating fast downstream (or so he

says). Nevertheless, in his topless,
soaked state he managed to hitchhike back home (being picked up
in record time). As a female friend
recently informed me “wet muscles
are irresistible”.
This trip was certainly one to remember, but Verdon has not been
our only excursion of the year; club
members have climbed in Yosemite,
the Alps, Italy, Lofoten, Sardinia,
Fontainebleau, Utah, Kazahkstan,
Frankenjura, Croatia, and the Red
Rocks. Even in England the sun is
known to shine occasionally, and
throughout the year we have fortnightly trips to locations all over the
UK. These are not only a chance
to practice climbing skills, but an
excuse to escape London for the
weekend. We have just returned
from this year’s fantastic Freshers’
Trip to the Peak District, for which
we took over thirty members!
Above all, our club is about encouraging newcomers and teaching
them to climb. For a taster, meet us
in the union quad at 1pm on any
Wednesday and we will take you
to the Westway Centre, one of the
UK’s largest indoor climbing walls.
There we will teach you the basics
of climbing and rope work before
you join us on one of our outdoor
trips, where you will inevitably get
hooked on climbing for life.
For more information, email
matthew.wallace@imperial.
ac.uk, or check out our website at: www.union.ic.ac.
uk/rcc/mountaineering/

27

Live music in dB’s
Matty Hoban
In my first year, I was amazed
that university venues like King’s
College were putting on brilliant
gigs such as the first UK show
with The Arcade Fire performing.
What amazed me was that our
union barely had any live music
in comparison. There was little
variety for someone like me who
likes music that is a bit different.
People who shared my opinion
didn’t feel proud of their union, or
maybe not pride but people were
passionless. When people aren’t
passionate about something, a
sense of community is not there
since there is no purpose for one
to exist.
Taking into account both of
these things, I took over the esteemed position of President of
the Alternative Music Society
last academic year (I took over
from the god amongst men that
is James Millen). One of my aims
was to create a community at Imperial of people who appreciated
music and I needed a focal point
for this. Thus, I created Kids Will
Be Skeletons, our regular gig
night where we charge the minimum entry possible. I started off
with little experience of promoting and took quite an amateur

approach. Our first night was
chaotic but inevitably fun. It was
brilliant that people were actually
being bothered about the union
and actually wanted to go there
to see some underground music.
Imperial is notorious for its
apathy and naturally some nights
not many people have turned up.
This can be disheartening but we
go on nevertheless because we
want to constantly provide a live
music outlet at Imperial. Our 21st
October night with a band from
San Francisco, Citizens Here and
Abroad was our most popular
night ever.
It was great and we hope to continue our success with our next
night on November 5th in dBs at
7:30pm. We have two bands from
France called Gatechien and Le
Singe Blanc and a band from
London called Man Aubergine.
We are charging £3 for students,
not to make money but so that
we can pay the bands’ transport
from France.
We don’t stand to make money
but because our society does not
have that much money so we
have to charge entry. We will be
running free nights when we can.
Please come down for a drink and
some great music so we can create a great atmosphere.

28

Friday 3 November 2006

felix

CLUBS & SOCIETIES

clubsandsocs.felix@imperial.ac.uk

Aussie kiss:
like a French
kiss, but
down under
From the 20th to the 22nd of October the Imperial Windsurfing Massive spent a quite epic weekend at
the biggest windsurfing festival in
Europe. Aussie Kiss 5 in Bude was
the destination for over 600 windsurfing students from across the
country, including about 20 or so
excited Imperialites. On Friday afternoon around 4pm the club met
around stores in double quick time
to load up the union minibus and
get going on our 6hr journey, which
was not helped by a certain Chris
M delaying our club president and
chauffeur Ben R. Arriving around
11pm and only having nicked a few
of the Ron’s cans of beer there was
a predictable rush for the bar as
600+ people indulged in the other
side of a windsurfing weekend, getting tanked.
After finding one of the many caravans available to us at Bude Holiday Park and stealing a few hours
sleep, it was up for breakfast and
then pile in the minibus to Roadford
Lake for some serious windsurfing.
Force 4 winds allowed everyone to
get on the water from beginners
who had never stepped on a board
to the more advanced surfers, such
as our own Alex P, laying down
some freestyle whilst wearing two
wetsuits.
Beginners received expert tuition
from qualified coaches including our
very own president Jess, all whilst
enjoying maximum time on the water in the fantastic conditions. Intermediate sailors were treated to
some on land tuition and guidance

from professional windsurfer Jim
Collis, helping everyone improve
their beach starts and quick tacks
(turning for the un-initiated). Advanced sailors had Jem Hall to help
them with their tricks and everyone
was able to grab some quality time
out on the water before packing up
for the day, and heading back to the
caravans to get ready for the party.
Everyone was buzzing in anticipation for the Caribbean themed
fancy dress party on Saturday
night, 600+ people dressed as Rastafarians, Pirates, Crocodiles, human sized Malibu bottles and many,
many scantily clad windsurfers descended on the bar to drink copious
amounts of rum, cider, lager and
anything they could throw down
the numerous funnels being passed
around the room.
When resident band I.D.Ology
took to the stage to lay down a blinding set of covers the room exploded
into life and the new hobby of crowd
surfing took over. After many hours
of letting loose, everyone drifted off
to caravans that may or may not
have been theirs (not in the case of
Jake, returning defeated at 7am)
and grabbed a few hours before
Sunday morning arrived.
To many who don’t know, windsurfing is probably the greatest
hangover cure you can dream of,
and another windy day and some
shiny demo kit provided the perfect
incentive to get out of bed. After
Jem Hall and Jim Collis delivered
a fantastic self-promotional speech
on their various clinics around the

IC Windsurfing member using the boat’s wake to pull a flip. That’s probably not the technical term
world, it was time to get on the water again for a good few hours before packing up and getting ready
for the prize giving via an epic mudsliding contest from many of the
Cardiff boys. Come the prize giving Imperial dominated with Alex
P deservedly getting the award

Lights, camera, and action!
FilmSoc presents the first IC Short Film Festival: this is
your chance to get your submission viewed by the world
Priya Garg & Jamie Lewis
Recently I went to see Miami Vice.
Drug smugglers in an East-Asian
country, a Chinese slut, helicopters and dead bodies, more ridiculous acronyms than a medics
handbook and lots of pointless
sex… Wow, what can I say? I’d
seen this film a hundred times
under many different titles, but
never as badly made as this and I
haven’t even mentioned Colin Farrell’s over-zealous hairstylist.
I was bored stiff. To pass the time
I resorted to playing ‘Snake’ on my
phone till even that got boring and
I ended up joining the mass exodus out of the cinema desperately
searching for that hour that I had
lost of my life and would never get
back.
Suddenly, it occurred to me. I
didn’t have to sit through all these

dire cinematic train wrecks. I
could make my own film. I could
show it to people. I could enter
it into the first ever IC FilmSoc
Short Film Festival taking place
on 10th December. It would be
projected onto a big screen, hundreds would see it and it would
definitely be better than Michael
Mann’s pathetic excuse for a film.
All I’d have to do is grab a blank
DVD, get my camera and start
rolling.
So I ask you – fancy yourself
as the next Hitchcock or Tarantino? Think you could do better
than me? (Probably not but try
anyway.) FilmSoc is giving a full
month until 1st December for you
to script, direct and edit your film
into DVD format. Remember, it
has to be yours and it has to be
less than thirty minutes long.
That’s it! Whatever your stand-

ard of film, give it a shot. If you’re
camera-less then STOIC will even
provide the equipment if you join
up, so there’s no excuse.
It costs just £5 to enter a film
and you gain free entry into the
festival as an esteemed film auteur in your own right.
I’m just sorry for you that my
film has already been made, so
mine will be the first DVD that will
be posted into the festival postbox
in the SAF, which is that large,
glass building that all the medics
eat in.
The deadline to submit your
masterpiece is 1 December, so get
busy with your Super-8 or fancy
digital cameras.
For more information, contact
Victoria Sanderson: victoria.sanderson@imperial.ac.uk.

for the advanced division and Jess
and Niall getting awards for beginner and intermediate instruction
respectively. After loading up the
minibus once more, everyone set
sail for home rounding off another
fantastic weekend for the IC Windsurf club.

If you are interested in joining our
club we meet most Thursdays
in the union for some social
merriment.
For any information or to
get going on our beginners’
tuition days email: committee@
imperialwindsurf.co.uk

Friday 3 November 2006

felix

CLUBS & SOCIETIES

29

clubsandsocs.felix@imperial.ac.uk

Oranges and lemons, say the bells
Peter Jasper
If you were in college on Wednesday, 25th October, you may well have
heard bells ringing out in celebration of the college’s Undergraduate
Graduation Ceremony. The bells at
the top of the Queen’s Tower are
the 7th heaviest set of 10 bells in the
world with the heaviest bell weighing nearly 2 tons. The bells were
given as a present by an Australian
millionaire to Queen Victoria in 1892
and because of this, they are unusual
in the way they remain the personal
property of the Queen.
Bells are found the world over, but
the style of ringing that you hear
in English churches (and of course
the Queen’s Tower) is unique to this
country. Bellringing started in the
sixteenth century and has continued
to this day, with ringers using the
same techniques and music as was
developed all those years ago. Today
there are thousands of people of all
ages ringing in churches throughout
the country, including student societies at many British universities.
The University of London Society
of Change Ringers (ULSCR) is one
of the oldest student ringing societies, having existed continuously for
over sixty years and remains very
active to this day. There are regular
practices and ringing trips which
are always followed by a pint or two
(or three) in a nearby pub. Bellringers do not have to be very strong
or musically minded and ringing
with a university society is a fantastic way to meet people and to get
out and about in places all over the
country. In the last year alone there
have been trips to Lundy Island,
Dorset and Birmingham. Also, the
annual inter-university competition
(and piss up!) takes place this year
in Cambridge and the ULSCR are
the current reigning champions.
However, ringing within the ULSCR
is not just limited to church bells,

The huge, very loud bells in the roof space of the Queen’s Tower
handbells are also an important
part of the life of the society. Just before Christmas, handbells are used
in the ULSCR concert when carols
are rung around the Christmas tree
in Trafalgar Square to entertain
the masses doing their Christmas
shopping.
However, bellringing is only part
of the story when it comes to ULSCR activities. Whether it is a trip to

RSM wages war
Eleanor Jay
On the 22nd October 21 intrepid
RSM students (11 from Materials
and 10 from Geology (ish!), missioned it out to a warehouse in
Canary Wharf, Greenwich. There,
inside the heavy steel doors, we
were faced with a monstrous tirade of inflatables, ditches, strong
holds, netting, tankers, sand bags,
bunkers … and bodies. This was
war..of a paintballing nature! After a safety briefing that consisted
mainly of, “ please don’t shoot the
roof or the marshals, but you can
shoot anything else!”, we donned
our all in ones, found Darth Vaderlike masks and we were away! First
we had a few games of capture the
flag, just enough time to test out our
semi-automatic rifles, it appears the
geologists may have gained an upper hand on these games… but no
one is really sure! Then we moved
on to different field protecting our
strong houses from invasions by
both sides. After some pretty chilling battle cries from Burg, Steve,
Tom and others (difficult to tell with
masks on!!), the Materials crew
managed to annihilate the geologists and stormed their castle, winning the game. Credit must be giv-

en to all those who “drew” fire by
running around the battle field and
then “re-charging” their lives, it is
hard to say how much paintballs really hurt, especially on the neck and
hands. After a few more games involving bombs, flags and diving into
sand, we moved on to the final field
which was the most challenging,
and most realistic… those trenches
really smelt; years of built up paint!!
The geologist one the first round of
save the package.. by sneakily grabbing it and then holding their own
extremely well. Also the game of
save the president was entertaining.. which the materials group
nearly own, only to be stopped by a
vivacious Satan, who prevented entry to the safe bunker! (That REALLY hurt guys!!). The last round was
a one on one round, so every one
was an enemy, this caused multiple
casualties, and even more bruises!
After all the games had finished (I
am reliably informed) that the materials group won 5-3, all players
put up a damn good fight, and have
the battle scars (bruises) to prove
it! We all had an awesome time, and
here’s to many a re-match in the
near future.. maybe we can challenge CGCU nest time instead.. after all we all know who will win!

a West End show, a treasure hunt
around the city or a “hit the dancefloor” clubbing event, there is something for everybody. This term alone
there are plans for a Freshers’ reception where anybody new to the
society gets free food and drink all
night, a bonfire night trip, a Christmas party and the annual dinner
and disco.
Perhaps then, if you heard the

Queen’s Tower bells being rung on
Commemoration Day or will listen
again when they are rung for Prince
Charles’s birthday on the 14th and
again for the Queen’s Wedding Anniversary on the 20th November, you
will spare a thought for the ringers
who are keeping this ancient tradition alive.
If you are a ringer, or interested in
just learning more about bellringing

the ULSCR is contactable via email
at secretary@ulscr.org.uk or on the
website www.ulscr.org.uk. Alternatively, come along to a practice night
on Thursday evenings from 7pm at
St Olave’s church, Hart Street (near
Tower Hill tube station) and you will
receive a warm welcome, whether
you have never touched a bell rope
before, or can conduct peals of London Surprise Maximus!

30

Friday 3 November 2006

felix

CLUBS & SOCIETIES

clubsandsocs.felix@imperial.ac.uk

Positively Red! Medsin AIDS Week
Fenella Benyon

P

ositively Red! is celebrating it’s third birthday this
year (in style, of course)
from 26th November to
1st December (World
AIDS day). In keeping with its predecessors, this year’s Positively Red!
(Imperial-medsin’s AIDS awareness week) will have a whole host
of events and activities to keep you
interested and entertained: from
dodgeball to debating; exhibition
to exciting party! AIDS awareness
week began off the back of the rapidly growing global AIDS pandemic
which, since the 1980s, has claimed
25 million lives and seen another 40
million people infected. In the UK,
there are around 58,000 people living with HIV/AIDS, and new diagnoses per year have doubled since
2000. Yet awareness of HIV has
actually decreased in the UK over
this time. Positively Red! is aiming
to raise money (as much as possible), awareness and debate over

the week. It will kick off with the
final of the fundraising dodgeball
tournament on the 26th November
at Ethos (get your teams together
now!); then move swiftly on to the
opening of the exhibition ‘around
the world’ on the 27th; create a heated debate on the 29th: “This house
believes that HIV status should be
public knowledge” + perspectives
on stigma from the UK and South
Africa; all will be rounded off with
an amazing party in the Union with
sub-red on the Friday night!
All the money we raise will be
split between three charities: children with AIDS charity (www.cwac.
org); Friends of the Treatment Action Campaign (www.fotac.org);
and kidzpositive family fund (www.
kidzpositive.org)

Dodgeball: the rules
THE TEAM
The game shall be played between two teams of 6 players. Other people will be available as substitutes.
Substitutes may enter the game only during timeouts or in the case of injury.

THE COURT
The game will be played indoors in the Wolfson Sports Hall and the Ethos Sports Hall. The playing field
shall be a rectangle at least 50 ft long and at least 30 ft wide, divided into two (2) equal sections by a
center-line and attack-lines 3m from, and parallel to the centerline.

THE EQUIPMENT
The official ball used in tournament will be a rubber-coated foam ball. Participants must wear trainers.

If you’d like to get involved,
submit a dodgeball team, enter
some artwork or just want some
more info, email Fenella Benyon:
fjb03@ic.ac.uk

THE GAME
The object of the game is to eliminate all opposing players by getting them “OUT”.
This may be done by:
1. Hitting an opposing player with a LIVE thrown ball below the shoulders.
2. Catching a LIVE ball thrown by your opponent before it touches the ground.
Definition of LIVE: A ball that has been thrown and has not touched anything, including the floor/ground,
another ball, another player, official or other item outside of the playing field (wall, ceiling, etc)

BOUNDARIES
During play, all players must remain within the boundary lines. Players may leave the boundaries through
their end-line only to retrieve stray balls. They must also return through their end-line.

THE OPENING RUSH
Game begins by placing the dodgeballs along the center line – three (3) on one side of the center hash
and three (3) on the other. Players then take a position behind their end line. Following a signal by the
official, teams may approach the centerline to retrieve the balls. This signal officially starts the contest.
Teams may only retrieve the three (3) balls to their right of the center hash. Once a ball is retrieved it must
be taken behind the attack-line before it can be legally thrown.

TIMING AND WINNING A GAME
The first team to legally eliminate all opposing players will be declared the winner. A 10-minute time limit
has been established for each contest. If neither team has been eliminated at the end of the 10 minutes,
the team with the greater number of players remaining will be declared the winner. In the case of an equal
number of players remaining after regulation, a 1-minute sudden-death overtime period will be played.

TIMEOUTS AND SUBSTITUTIONS
Each team will be allowed one (1) 30 second timeout per game. At this time a team may substitute players
into the game.

FIVE-SECOND VIOLATION
In order to reduce stalling, a violation will be called if a team in the lead controls all six (6) balls on their
side of the court for more than 5 seconds.

RULE ENFORCEMENT
Players will be expected to rule whether or not a hit was legal or whether they were legally eliminated.
All contests will be supervised by a referee. The referee’s responsibility will be to rule on any situation in
which teams cannot agree. The referee’s decision is final, with absolutely no exceptions.

CODE OF CONDUCT
1. Understand, appreciate and abide by the rules of the game.
2. Respect the integrity and judgment of game officials
3. Respect your opponent and congratulate them in a courteous manner following each match whether in
victory or defeat.
4. Be responsible for your actions and maintain self-control.
5. Do not taunt or bait opponents and refrain from using foul or abusive language.
Anyone in violation of this code of conduct as declared by the tournament personnel will be disqualified
from the tournament without refund and will leave the premises immediately.

Friday 3 November 2006

felix

CLUBS & SOCIETIES

31

clubsandsocs.felix@imperial.ac.uk

IC Radio bring us the noise
IC Radio has the gear and the talent to provide you with a DJ and some banging tunes
Sebastian Kaminski
Head of Discos
ICRadio discos can answer so
many of your problems. Perhaps
your club or society is organising
a disco? Perhaps you want to host
the party to end all parties? Do you
need a sound system so magnificent that the bass blows everyone
in attendance away? Perhaps you
need to hire a DJ? Are you a DJ
who wants to play at a disco? Well
then IC Radio is the club for you.
We have a dedicated disco team
that hire out our impressive sound
system to clubs and societies for
their parties, socials and other
non-descript gatherings of boozehounds. For those of you who are
technical-minded, it includes two
Technics 1210 turntables, a Behringer 2500 Amp, some impressively large speakers, a Denon dual
CD mixer and a four channel Denon mixer. We’ve also got monitor
speakers, microphones and other
essential equipment. All of which
adds up to tremendous aural pleasure for all of those in attendance.
In essence, ICRadio can provide
your club, society or just your group
of friends with all the equipment
you will need and a DJ who cuts all
the mustard in sight. All of which
comes at a very reasonable price.
We’ve already helped organise
four discos this term, like the Civ-

Soc Christmas Party and the Erasmus party, and have more lined up.
One happy customer said, “A live
DJ really improved the atmosphere
and provided a focus for the party”,
and “the sound system and music were excellent.” Another said,
“That was the best disco I went to
that night!”
Perhaps you are an experienced
DJ, or want to become an experienced DJ, who plays at all the topnotch events that ICRadio entertain? Whether you’re a professional
or just another amateur who’s never played before you could be DJing
at one of these discos.
ICRadio is often called up by societies looking for DJs to play at their
events. DJing for ICRadio is not
only great fun, but for one night’s
work you can earn yourself enough
cash to pay for your next night out
with your friends (as long as you go
to Cheapskates).
Most of our work is cheesy oldschool hits, modern pop and hiphop, but we do get the occasional
call up for alternative or house music. The more people we have for
each genre the more often we get
invited to perform at events.
If your society needs a sound
system, or if you’re up for some
DJing, send an email to sebastian.kaminski@ic.ac.uk.

Mike Higgins
Station Manager

Lisa and Seb DJing at one of many wild CivSoc boat parties

Moon Unit: IC’s favourite rock show
SuperDan and Essex Boi
Under the guise of our superhero
alter egos, SuperDan and Essex
Boi, we aim to bring you the greatest in guitar sounds. Well, sort of.
The music on Moon Unit is nothing
other than our taste, much like most
shows on ICRadio. It is an amalgamation of the majority of what the
media calls ‘alternative’. We call it
mainstream rock, but we enjoy a
dash of metal, a pinch of punk and
a dollop of electro all added into
the witch’s cauldron for added fun,
craic and wonder.
You may have seen us at the
Freshers’ Fair. We did a live set on
the ICRadio stand from two until
three. If you do not remember us,
we were the two guys with appalling haircuts playing out the likes of
The Rapture, The Clash and The
Killers whilst drinking some pints
and shaking our jelly. We hope this
encouraged you to sign up to follow
in our footsteps.
Moon Unit is now in its third year
of operation and since its inception
has managed to become Imperial College’s most listened to rock
show. However, none of our listeners ever want to tell us about the
show. So, before we start telling you
why you too should become a Moon
Uniter, I ask anyone who listens to
get in contact and start requesting
tracks and generally telling us why
we are so much better than everyone else. Not that we are immodest,
we just state the facts. Though only
the facts that make us look good.
On a normal Moon Unit hour we
each take over the show for a thirtyminute section, playing exclusively

our own musical choice. SuperDan
normally sticks to the modern day
taking Moon Unit down a road filled
with the delights of 90s’ Brit pop,
some mellow tunes and some turnof-the-century metal. On the other
end of the Unit, Essex Boi tends to
stick to the older sounds. The 80s’
post-punk era, 70s’ hard/psychedelic rock and 60s’ guitar pop
seem to be the usual choice. The
best in Moon Unit music comes in
the crossover regions. The mainstream area in which we both like
to delve out musical tastes is filled
with pleasures unknown. When one
of us manages to find a song that we
both like the show tends to hit fifth
gear. Within this limited category
exists the likes of Björk, Bloc Party
and anything but modern R’n’B.
Basically, your staple diet of indie
dance floor tracks and ‘experimental’ music will be catered for within
our weekly hour of fun and games.
Alongside the music there exists
the infamous Moon Unit banter. It
is the repartee between the two of
us that repeatedly brings our listeners back, begging for more. In
shows gone by we have discussed
everything from the merits of modern day R’n’B in the vein of those
Beyoncé types (we concluded that
there are none) to the always appropriate subject of coprophilia (I
suggest you Google that word if you
do not know it, but be warned, do
not do an image search).
We like to include a few regular
features in the show. We have had
weekly interviews with pop and
TV superstars Alvin and the Chipmunks, followed by their rendition
of a famous song. Another piece

SuperDan and Essex Boi: Their parents were fire and brimstone
that often rears its ugly head is
Not On My Moon Unit. This is a little ditty where Essex Boi normally
plays out a classic piece of hip-hop,
reggae or Motown that is actually
good, unlike most of the rubbish
from the mainstream ‘urban’ scene.
Finally Dan’s Shit Past involves SuperDan playing something that he
liked when he was about thirteen
(Blink 182 etc).
We also regularly run Moon Unit
Specials. This week saw a Halloween themed show that included
songs of a scary nature. Only songs
that contained lyrics of doom and
despair made the cut (except for

Essex Boi’s closing track). This
spookfest included some of The
Jesus and Mary Chain, Nine Inch
Nails and Korn, for all your gothic
metal needs. Next week, though,
will see a return to our usual programming selection, what that includes even we do not know.
Frankly we do not take ourselves
seriously, but somehow have quite
a decent following and we enjoy
ourselves. Over the past years we
found that when it comes to making good shows professionalism is
secondary to making the listeners
laugh. So go and download our last
show, it is very good. Trust us.

You are rather lucky to go to Imperial, I can tell you this. But not
for any of the reasons you have
heard before. You are lucky because Imperial College Radio is
probably the best student radio
station around. “But I hear it is
just another student radio station” you cry. Now that is just
wrong. I have been told that we
broadcast more hours of original programming per year than
most, if not all, of our competitors
in the capital. One of the best features on the ICRadio website is
our listen again service. We keep
every show presented in the last
four years and they are all available for you to download. So if
you visit us at the award-winning
www.icradio.com you can hear
all the shows you have missed
over the years. The main aspect
is for us to create and broadcast
radio shows. A lot of people tell
me that they could never do a radio show because they would feel
too self-conscious, but even when
the shyest of my friends guest on
my show, they become animated
chatterboxes the moment I flip
the On Air switch.
Are you still not convinced that
you should be a part of ICRadio?
I have more reasons. ICRadio is
mostly filled with music lovers,
me included. But, and this is a
big but, the main difference between ICRadio and other music
related clubs and societies is the
distinct lack of music fascism.
Any music sits perfectly with any
other type, anywhere on ICRadio
and we intend to keep it like that.
ICRadio has the likes of cheesypoptastic School Daze (with
resident schoolmasters Lisa
Bunclark and Seb Kaminski) sat
right alongside the metal monster that is Iron Thursday, the
brainchild of Flangernon Lacy
and Jurgen Grundleburger. Alex
Baldwin (him from the Nightlife
section) and his buddy Matt Long
come in and play all kinds of odd
sounds that I often find surprisingly pleasant on the interestingly titled Lazer Tiger vs. The Acid
Tripping Swamp Monkeys.
Shows are not our only output. Seb Kaminski is in charge
of running the numerous events
we are hired to do by Imperial’s
other clubs and societies. Folake
Adegbohun runs a music review
team that take all of the twenty to
fifty CDs we are sent every week.
Our members also get access to
our professional recording studio. Where some minor sucessful
songs have been recorded. On top
of all of this our resident house
junkie, James Yearsley, teaches
the finer points of turntablism to
those who are interested.
Hopefully you are convinced
that ICRadio is the best thing on
Earth and that you want to join
our noble cause. If you are suitably impressed email manager@
icradio.com and I can get you
rocking the airwaves within the
week.

32

Friday 3 November 2006

felix

COFFEE BREAK

coffee.felix@imperial.ac.uk

Coffee Break is back with the Sarge
Reintroducing the world’s best quiz: the Felix University/College-Wide Invitational Tournament (FUCWIT)

Sergeant Hartman
Right, as I’m sure you’re all aware,
David Hasselhoff (otherwise known
around these parts as the Hoff) has
suddenly departed from hallowed
Imperial ground without a trace
at the end of last year, and hasn’t
returned to do his regular page in
Felix this year. Coffee Break can
exclusively reveal that he has buggered off onto I’m a Celebrity, Get
Me Out of Here due to the sizeable
pay-packet he would be receiving
from it, and therefore he has left a
void in Felix that many have always
thought could not be filled (due to
the size of the Hoff ’s monstrous
loins).
Luckily for all of you, however,
that’s false, as I’ve decided to hop
over from writing the common
sense column (or what the Comments Editor called satire) to doing
Coffee Break. I have to say that although he has left a legacy behind,
he really didn’t have much substance, and his loins weren’t as big

as mine. Think of it this way – we
voted him back for another year
with Felix (only just, fending off Optimus Prime) and he just buggered
off without saying goodbye. Basically, I’m far better. Hear me roar.
So stand straight when I’m talking
to you!
Anyhow, onto business, so listen
up – I was looking forward (somewhat) to returning to Imperial for
another year of soaking up knowledge from friendly professors and
getting ever closer to obtaining
my degree (or not, pending alcohol consumption). After a long and
gruelling battle with several estate
agents, a landlord or two, and several bed and breakfasts (don’t ask!),
I managed to get a nice little place
just a stone’s throw away from College. I was ready to attempt to do
some sort of work – but before all
those dreams were duly shattered
as I walked onto campus, I was
blinded as I walked onto Upper
Dalby Court, where bright blues
and the new addition of greens and
pinks of the building opposite absolutely wreaked havoc on my retinas.
After dropping to the ground and
quickly donning some Ray-Bans, I
decided that it was probably something to do with the BioMedical Engineering department’s “Restore
sight to the blind” campaign or similar – Stevie Wonder could see those
colours, for Christ’s sake.
A little digging revealed the archi-

The rules of the game
Welcome back to this year’s Felix
University/College-Wide Invitational Tournament, or FUCWIT.
The format of this year’s competition is going to be a little spiced
up, because I know for a fact that
too many things given to you all
last year were so easily searchable on the internet. The Hoff
got more than a little suspicious.
Anyway, here’s how it works:
You need a team name. Think
of one. Every week, make sure
you include your team name
when you email in the answers
to coffee.felix@imperial.ac.uk
You get 2 marks for each question. I’ll give one mark for what I
deem to be partially correct answers, or for particularly clever
wrong answers.
tect responsible for this interesting
new addition to college was a bloke
called Sheppard Robson. This is
all well and good, frankly because
when I run out of red and blue in
my colouring pencil set and want
to doodle in lectures, I would also
naturally reach for the Barbie pink
and Lime-on-acid. However, what
I can’t figure out is why somebody
has budgeted £5.7m for the project,

This year there may be, but
not always, secret bonus marks
on one or more of the questions
based on the quality of your
answer, again to make things
interesting.
We’ll always give the maximum
number of obtainable points each
round, to keep you guessing as
to how many you can get.
This week, we’re going to give
you nine different photos of places around Imperial College. Your
job is to give us the name of the
building (i.e. not the name of the
department(s) that use it). If you
can’t find the name, you may
get one mark for other relevant
information so give it a shot. So,
how well do you know really
Imperial?
which was due to be finished in
April 2006, although it’s been closed
off on a few weekends and work (including the lovely pink thing that
sits on top of the building) seems to
be ongoing periodically.
I’m not sure if this surpasses the
little civil engineering mishap of
forgetting to factor in the weight of
water in the swimming pool in the
old leisure centre (whoops), forc-

ing the pool to be built in the basement instead of its original location
on the first floor, but the new one
definitely looks the part. Sitting opposite ‘the blue cube’, the pink and
green seems to fit in. It’s also attached to the Royal School of Mines,
and I can assure everyone reading
this that the RSM had nothing to do
with what happened next door.
This naturally prompted me to
take a look around College and examine the architecture present in
a little more detail. Given what I’ve
already seen, the results weren’t
that surprising – it looks like a hundred years’ worth of buildings, past
and present, were dumped on a
block behind the Science Museum
and left there as Imperial College.
In a way, I’m thankful that not everything looks the same, but at the
same time we not only possess the
cure-the-blind architecture, oh no,
we also have in our inventory a
couple of buildings – physicists look
away now – that look, from the outside, so dreary and uninspiring that
I could swear the architect was the
same guy who designed the office
for Dilbert, minus the cat, dog, and
the guy with his hair on fire.
This, incidently, also gave me inspiration for this year’s first FUCWIT competition. How well do you
know your way around Imperial
College and what each department
looks like? It’s time to find out this
week.

Answers:
1

2

1
Let’s start off easy because I don’t want anyone to have no points after the first round.
That would just make you sad and pathetic.

2
Possibly the centrepiece of the Imperial
campus. Mainly there to annoy the rest of us
with constant chiming on special occasions.

3
Welcome to Nerd Central a.k.a Cram-City
a.k.a the answer! The stench of curry from
last year’s cram season still fills the air.

3

4

5

4

5

The Sarge pauses to take a look at the building that whistles on a windy day (it really
does). What’s this place called?

Plenty of Imperial students have many stories to tell about this place, but currently the
entrance is blocked off.

6
Sarge pauses to take a look at the home
of its slightly more drunken, lower class
citizens. He makes a hasty getaway.

6

7

8

7
Welcome to the Biomedical Engineer’s
project for restoring sight to the blind. You
can be excused for not wanting to know this.

8
The only place at Imperial College you’ll ever
see a naked lady. Where is the Sarge currently jerking off?

9
One final extra hard bonus question. What
is the name of the building, and what lies
beyond these double doors?

9

Friday 3 November 2006

felix

PUZZLES

33

sudoku.felix@imperial.ac.uk

Sudoku 1,362

This Week’s Horoscopes

Complete the grid so that every row, every column and every 3x3
square contains the digits 1 to 9. Email your solution to sudoku.
felix@imperial.ac.uk by Tuesday 9am. We will randomly select
a winner to receive either a 128MB USB stick or a crate of beer.
You must claim your prize within a week.

Scorpio (23 Oct – 21 Nov)

Pisces (19 Feb – 20 Mar)

Cancer (22 Jun – 22 Jul)

If you can read this,
you’re too fucking
close. That girl there
you’ve been eyeing for
the last half hour over
your lunch doesn’t like
you. In fact, she and her friends
are discussing whether your penis
is small, or really fucking small.
You suck; your penis is tiny.

Aliens invade today,
and force the most
intelligent to pair off
and mate non-stop.
Unfortunately, it
appears that physical beauty and intelligence are
inversely proportional to one another, and you end up getting knob
chafe off a minger. Hahahaha.

You’re really irritating. In fact, your mere
presence makes me
want to barf up my
large intestine. You
have the fetid body
odour of a whale carcass, and your
small-minded, viciously racist
political ideals make nuns cry. In
short, I hate you.

Sagittarius (22 Nov – 21 Dec)

Aries (21 Mar – 20 Apr)

Leo (23 Jul – 22 Aug)

Everybody welcome
Chris Hemmens
to the arena! That
ker-ray-zee mofo has
contributed to Gemini
this week. An initiation ceremony of child abuse and
anal beads awaits you, Chris! Now
assume the position and let the
pop-pop-popping commence!

You’re offended by
the horoscopes, and
believe that flaming, fusing balls of
hydrogen thousands
of millions of miles
away can influence your day to day
life. Congratulations! You have the
intellectual capacity of a gnat, and
the good looks of rabid goat.

Critics describe your
next week as ‘stunning’, ‘a breathtaking
tour de force’ and ‘the
best thriller since
The Ipcress File’.
You receive three academy award
nominations, while your stuntman
receives two. In the end, you both
only win one. You are both pleased.

Capricorn (22 Dec – 19 Jan)

Taurus (21 Apr – 21 May)

Virgo (23 Aug – 22 Sept)

What are you doing in
my house? Get your
feet out of my slippers, prick. Is that a
pipe? You’ve got ash
all over the carpet!
Get out, I’m calling the police. GET
OUT. Now. You are about to go on
a long journey in a whole world of
hurt. In a big white ambulance.

You wouldn’t believe
how hard it is (for me
the intruder) to come
up with twelve funny
things to say. I haven’t
even managed one,
and I’m over halfway down the
page already. Having said that, it’s
still funnier than the Felix comics.
But then, so is amoebic dysentery.

A man walks into
a bar and sees two
pieces of meat nailed
to the ceiling. The
barman tells him he
can win a lot of money
if he pays a tenner and can get
them down. He responds: “Forget
it, the steaks are too high”. I think
we can all learn from this parable.

The entire staff of
Windsor Castle will
be camping on your
doorstep tomorrow.
It became clear poor
recycling figures for
the UK was your fucking fault. You
protest their protest by burning an
urban fox you captured a week ago.
They cheer and crown you king.

The masked psychopath aims his assault
rifle at your head. To
kick his legs out from
beneath him, turn to
page 18. To break his
face, turn to page 71. To run like a
pathetic coward, turn to drugs in
an attempt to assuage the guilt of
leaving everyone to die.

6

8

9

1

4

6

2

3

5

4

8

2

9

7

9

1

3

6

4

5

4

7

8

2

3

1

2
9
5

9
Jotting pad

Solution to 1,361
8
9
4
5
6
2
1
7
3

5
2
3
1
7
8
9
4
6

1
7
6
4
3
9
8
5
2

6
1
9
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7
5
2
8

2
3
5
8
9
6
7
1
4

4
8
7
2
5
1
6
3
9

7
5
8
6
2
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9
1

3
4
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9
8
5
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6
7

9
6
2
7
1
4
3
8
5

Thanks to everyone who entered.
Remi Williams: a winner is you.
Keep those entries coming in!

Send your answers to sudoku.felix@imperial.ac.uk or bring this page
down to the Felix office in the West Wing of Beit Quad by Tuesday 9am.
Each week, we’ll choose a winner, who will receive both kudos and £10.
Last week’s winner is Paul Kirk. Well done, Paul. You must claim your
prize within a week. Everyone who provides us with a correct solution
will get an entry into our prize draw at the end of the year.

Greetings, crossword fans!
This week’s crossword has a
lot of Cs in it. I tried to keep them
out, but they sneaked in through
the window while I wasn’t looking.
I was also in a bit of a continental mood while writing the clues.
By this I mean, of course, that I
couldn’t think of any English words
so I used French ones instead. I
knew that AS level would come in
handy at some point.
The good news is that there
are absolutely no philosophers,
misspelled or otherwise. Poor
Friedrich.
Rawden
Yes, I mis-spelt Nietzsche. Sorry.
Scarecrow
Solution to Crossword 1,361
N
S
G
B
F
P
S
P
E
C
U
L
A
T
E

A beautiful performance
If only the match were up to the standard of the warm up!
Women’s Hockey
IC 2nd XI 2 - 0 UCL 3rd XI
The IC girls arrived at Harlington
in a confident mood, following a 120 victory in their previous game.
Attempting intimidation tactics
through dynamic stretching prowess is a popular theme of the 2nd’s
matches, UCL were treated to a
special display incorporating goalie-worship routines.
The game began with a solid, if
rather conservative, defence for IC,
lead by Izzy playing a great game
as sweeper and Fi showing us what
she can do if we let her up in the
midfield for a match!
As the game progressed, IC became more attacking, with numerous opportunities in the ‘D’ finally
resulting in a somewhat scrappy
goal from Dasha. The next goal
showed rather more flair, with Dasha planting an awesome cross for
Melissa to finish before UCL knew
what hit them.
UCL rarely had a chance to
threaten the IC goal; when they did,
good clearing from short corners
and some excellent hitting from
Bella quickly saw IC back in attack.
Trish and Melissa worked hard on
the left side; covering more ground
than I did in the whole of last season! Unfortunately most of IC’s

IC Ladies demonstrate elegance in an unorthodox warm-up routine
breaks failed to reach the stick of a
striker; with a little more organisation the score line may have reflected the dominance of IC’s play.
Girl of the game was a difficult
decision and came down to a boat
race between Bella, Fi and Izzy;
Bella won in style to claim the title,
for services to hitting the ball very
hard yet with surprising accuracy.
Twat of the match was an easier decision, and was claimed by Izzy for
a very elegant fall on her backside!

Special mentions go to Mary for
standing in as goalie despite being
unable to move most of her limbs,
to Roxy for letting us have her, and
Dasha for hitting with her stick, not
her head.
Post-match celebrations saw our
captain in a rather delicate state; I
am assured this was wholly the responsibility of Bella and most definately not Fi herself.
Alice Rowlands
Sport Editor

IC men play with each other

The 1st XV were in high spirits
after an impressive performance
against Royal Holloway, last year’s
ULU Cup winners who beat the 1st
XV in the final. Today’s opponents
were another side promoted due
to BUSA restructuring, and were
keen to stamp their authority.
The game started poorly for IC;
the Royal Free forwards were
fired up and were a lot more physical up front, and after some sustained pressure they managed to
drive the scrum from five metres
out over the IC try line to get the
first points of the day.
This pressure continued in the
scrums and in tight play, but some
poor tackling by the forwards let
the centre over the try line for
Royal Free’s second try.
Only then did IC wake up and
starting playing their own game;
with mouvement général occurring in full flow all over the park,
Royal Free were unable to control
the apparent chaos that was unfolding in front of them.
However, poor finishing meant
that IC never crossed the line and
Royal Free took the advantage
again by scoring the third try of the
half with a run through the centres.

Men’s Football
IC 4ths 1 - 0 IC St George 2nds

Imperial footballers in shirt and ties? It could only be Christmas
a nice run along the by-line was
matched by a cool finish. Oops. 2-0
down. This never happened to Muhammed Ali.
Sometimes, however, football is
about more than skill. A dogged 5th
team managed to reach half time
without conceding further, and
captain Gui’s passion-charged halftime team talk stirred something
within the hearts and loins of the
5ths.
A changed 5th team started to win
some challenges in midfield and finally managed to start to pass the
ball about. Early in the second half,
5th team pressure saw a seemingly
fair goal ruled out for a marginal
offside after excessive 4th team
whinging. This only served to delay
the inevitable as James Long sped
through the heart of the 4th team
defence to bury a great shot past
poor Mike Pursey. Barely seconds

later and the 5ths had equalised as
Scott finished off a rampaging run
with a neat finish.
Within the space of 10 minutes the
game had completely turned on its
head, as now it was the 4th teams
turn to hang on. They couldn’t quite
manage however, and 5ths captain
Gui completed a magnificent comeback with what turned out to be the
winning goal, rounding the keeper
and rolling the ball over the line, before succumbing to a bout of cramp
during his celebration. Ten nervous minutes remained, but the 5th
team hardcore defending meant
3-2 was the way the match ended.
Frenzied scenes of celebration met
the final whistle as the 5ths gloated and rubbed their victory in the
faces of the gutted 4th teamers. A
great game from both teams: here’s
looking forward to a great season.
Sam Styles

Losing 17 – 0 at half time, IC were
getting fired up for the second half
which saw big tackles occurring all
over the field. Nathan made sure
Royal Free would not try and run
through the centres again by flattening their centre and knocking
him out.
Up front, man of the match Ben
Moorhouse was a machine, tackling everything in sight and making sure their forwards couldn’t
get through the side of the ruck
and mauls.
Again, IC’s movement and play
was sensational, particularly from
the backs, but poor finishing and
the forwards were in set play without a proper hooker stopped them
from scoring.
The last five minutes saw extremely fast play; Royal Free
scored their fourth try, and IC finally decided to wake up and play
rugby! Up front, the forwards ran
at the opposition with persistent
pressure, paying off with Bo driving over the line for IC’s first try,
which was quickly followed by
quick hands from the kick off to
find Mike, on the wing, who simply glided through the oppositions
backs to score.
Although a disappointing result,
the team can take some brilliant
moments of play and take it into
next weeks game against GKT.
Jovan Nedic

Imperial men’s football 4ths
dominate St George 2nds

Men’s Football
IC 4ths 2 - 3 IC 5ths
It has been eight long, exercisefree months since the end of last
year’s football season. On Saturday
however, with trials completed and
a new batch of freshers initiated
into (unofficially) IC’s greatest club
and/or society, the veterans of IC
football were finally able to squeeze
back into their footy kits ready for
the battle to begin. The highlight
of the opening round of fixtures
thrown up by the ULU Supercomputer was the most intense of rivalries – an inter-IC derby.
A 3-0 pre-season friendly victory
for the 5ths in this same fixture,
four days earlier, meant that the
game was sure to be a cracker. The
4th team aching for revenge and
the 5th’s desperatation to prove the
friendly win was no fluke. Even the
new boys could tell how much pride
was at stake in this one.
The 5th team entered the game
with the same rope-a-dope strategy
that served them so well in the earlier encounter – let the 4ths come
at them all guns blazing, roll with
the punches and then bang! Hit
them on the counter. Sure enough
the 4ths shot out of the blocks; unfortunately for the 5th team master
plan, this time they managed to
score. Twice.
The first goal, from a great cross
by Sam Rickards, was somehow
poked in at the back stick by a wellmarked Tariq. The second 4ths
goal followed shortly afterwards
as Chris was picked out unmarked
from a half-cleared corner and

35

IC faced St George’s in their first
home game of a slow starting season. The game was almost won
before kick off; the reputation of
“Fortress Harlington” striking fear
into medics nationwide. IC adopted
the 4-1-3-2 system, used by England to secure the 1966 World cup
final (a match, coincidently, also
played against a load of pricks).
St George’s were so sure of defeat
they turned up forfeiting the game
to avoid humiliation. Captain Skeen
was having none of it, and the Medic
annihilation began.
From the outset IC played with
tremendous flair and skill. Nutmegs, Cruff turns and Ronaldostyle step-overs were being served
up in abundance. IC were so confident that Alex “Nuts!” Rybka allowed St George’s to nutmeg him;
the sign of a truly confident footballer. Even the keeper Frank “hawk
eye” O’Neil (known for his ability to
spot a penalty from the other end of
the pitch) wanted aboard the now
fully loaded showboat. Having received the ball from a pass back, he
played it off an advancing attacker
and picked it up again, a move now
known as “The O’Neil”.
IC dominated the midfield with
Jeremy “The Erotic” Lovett and
Sam Rickett, feeding countless
through-balls to Max “I swear it’s
my real name” Steel and Luca
Laraia to chase, testing the soonto-be-exhausted St George keeper.

Wide mids Alex “I will only score
stylish goals” Avila and Alex Rybka
gave IC depth of attack, which St
George could barely understandlet alone deal with. With so much
pressure, something was bound
to give and right before half time
that turned out to be Max’s anklean horrific tackle from a rubbish
medic hacked it of. Frank politely
explained what happened to the
referee, in a language which may
only be described as “Irish”, and
was duly awarded a penalty. James
“The Shadow” Skeen placed the
ball in the boggy, cut up, marsh of a
penalty area as the air grew tense.
The unthinkable happened as the
7-foot keeper, with hands the size of
the goal, saved the perfectly struck
shot, leaving the score at 0-0 at half
time. In the second half, near gale
force winds allowed St George’s a
few shots, against the run of play.
The combination of Mike “The
Butcher” Allen and Scott “Razor”
McKenzie at centre back ensured
chances were kept to a minimum.
The introduction of Tariq “The
Stealth” Melham at half time and
the attacking nature of Paul “not
the shark” Szczesiak gave IC increased width in midfield; splitting
the St George’s defence wider than
a “Master-full” mother of ill repute.
With the time running out, Luca
“The Assistant” Laraia put Sam
“The Scorer” Rickets through on
goal, he finished with Thierry Henry style. The game was one of the
most convincing 1-0 victories ever,
and the start of the IC 4ths 100%
home record.
James Skeen